


An Unexpected Extravaganza

by Ncj700



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Blades of Marmora, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Galra Keith (Voltron), Keith's Birthday Week 2017, Multi
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2017-10-24
Updated: 2017-12-27
Packaged: 2019-01-22 03:45:11
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,980
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12472736
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ncj700/pseuds/Ncj700
Summary: It’s Keith’s Birthday, and the first one since Pidge managed to figure out how to translate human calendars to the galactic standard, so of course the paladins of Voltron have to celebrate. For Keith, it’s one going to be one of the best emotional rollercoasters of his life.





	1. Bonds

“Anything?” Keith asked as Coran stared at the two slides containing his skin samples under the microscope.

Coran squinted and opened his mouth as if he had noticed something, then he sighed in disappointment. “I’m sorry Keith, whatever has been happening to you since the Druids used that last jolt quintessence, I’m afraid myself scanners can’t detect it. According to your samples and that last session in a healing pod, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with you,” he said apologetically, showing Keith the slides on a projector.

The cells were moving, definitely doing something from the influence of quintessence they had been exposed to. Dividing at a rapid rate, but not much more than normal, and Coran could find nothing abnormal to explain the change in Keith’s skin colour.

“It’s fine Coran,” he said, scratching the edge of a patch of purple skin bleeding out around his wrist where it met his normal tone, the two colours mixing together in a white, scaly crust.

“It most certainly is _not!_ ” The Altean man scoffed. “We promised we would find a way to stop this, and that is what we’ll do. I’ll need some more quintessence, and some more samples from you, before but I will find an answer - I might try asking the Olkari if they have any medical officers who have seen anything like this, and I’ll speak to Kolivan again.”

It had started after Keith had been rapidly withdrawn from his infiltration mission. Re-joining Voltron, he and Shiro had traded places as Black's pilot, or changed up with Lance and Allura. One mission into a Galra command chip for some data that had been traced to its archives had gone wrong, and Keith had almost been drowned in a blast of quintessence.

The effects didn’t show till later and Keith had approached Coran, mentioning that the first dosage he had ever been exposed to  had turned him purple for an instant before fading. Only now, it had come back, and this time it wasn’t fading; instead it had set off a slow, and seemingly itchy change in his dermatology.

Two months later, the patches were larger, and Coran was only minimally closer to understanding why. He was beginning to wonder if asking the Princess to try using some of her budding magic might be worth a shot. For all his science knowledge, this particular condition was fighting Coran’s attempts to halt it tooth and claw. He was determined though.

Keith had been terrified when he first revealed it, unsure if he was dying or turning into some hybrid beast monster that could be controlled by the druids - _quiznak_ , what an idea that had been! Now, Coran could tell that the strange changes no longer seemed to be causing the boy as many worries as before. Perhaps it had been the anxiety of revealing another ‘ _Galra thing_ ’ to them all.

Keith worried about other people more than he liked to admit, so it wasn’t surprising to Coran that his thoughts had only settled after his friends had only expressed their concern and scolded him for not saying something sooner.

Particularly after a likeminded reaction from the Princess, when she demanded he go into a healing pod - ‘ _Just to be sure Keith! Please! If it’s some kind of illness that affects Galra you could be susceptible! If it isn’t then we’ll investigate, but please! I would be most unhappy if you were unwell! Illnesses amongst solar systems can be very dangerous! None of us want something to happen to you!_ ’.

The healing pod had ruled out a space disease, but only raised more questions. It had helped Keith relax though, knowing they all worried only for his health. For now, they had time; new patches of purple skin only seemed to occur when he was exposed to quintessence for extended periods of time, and those were not too common. Yes, the patches were growing in size, but it was slow. Coran felt contingent enough to say they had time.

“You should go relax lad,” he advised. “I want to try a few more things on the other samples you gave me and it’ll be another few days at least before I can call any results out.” He paused. “Come back later on though, for the scans.” Coran wanted to track the condition as it spread, so Keith had regular scans that checked his body.

Keith scratched at the patch of purple that had started appearing around his eyebrow, then nodded. “Thank you, Coran,” he said politely, rising from his seat beside the desk and heading out of the medical wing.

Coran watched him leave, then turned back to the slides. He needed some of the fresh samples again if he was going to get to the bottom of Keith’s mystery condition.

* * *

It had started out as simple observation, but overtime, the watching became training.

Kolivan understood that the bond between lion and pilot was a sacred bond almost, intelligent beyond anyone’s comprehension. He was also given to understand that all the paladins with the exception of Shiro, and Keith, were not well versed in hand to hand combat.

Frankly, their fighting style was a mishmash of school-learned techniques and ‘ _whatever works_ ’. The black paladin had a distinct style that came with senior training and his own experiences in the Galra championship rings.

Keith was different again. Natural biology gave him an incessancy, an urgency to his movements that marked him out. He was also slightly more conscious in the movements he made. He thought about them - while he had not had as much training as Shiro, natural genetics that predisposed him to the movements of a ‘ _predator species_ ’ and what seemed to be more standardised training placed him at a higher level than the others.

It didn’t seem to bother anyone though, indeed the yellow and green paladins seemed to appreciate watching and learning from him as much as they did their leader.

Recently however, Kolivan had noticed that his youngest blade was, mentally, otherwise engaged. When he came to practice, he wasn’t as focused on training so much as he was raining blows and punches on the combat droid until he dropped from exhaustion, long after any of his comrades, even the Altean princess, who had far more natural endurance than the humans.

Kolivan guessed that it was his Galra heritage coming through, but as for the distraction, he wasn’t entirely sure what that could be.

He had not known Keith for very long, but knew after several missions together that he tended to internalise his thoughts. He also knew he was conflicted over where his place was, though that could be said of many others in their organisation with dual heritage like Keith.

“ _You are not focusing,_ ” he said to Keith as the boy collapsed in front of the combat droid, just barely defeating the fifth level, a feat which ought to have been less difficult. “ _Training when your thoughts are elsewhere is unproductive._ ”

“I’m fine!” Keith mumbled. “ _It was just a bit of a work out that’s all,_ ” he insisted; Galran came much more easily to him now; spending long enough with the Blade had helped Keith learn. He’d had to. Not every ship had translation programming, and they were not always aboard a ship.

He’d been surprised that Keith knew a few words already, and even more surprised when the green paladin (Katie? Pidge? Kolivan was unsure of her exact term of address, as the castleship inhabitants alternated - all he knew for certain was that she was a ' _female_ ' in human biology) told him he’d used them ever since they first found the lions.

So, Keith’s Galra parent had spent enough time speaking the language around him to implant a few forgotten words in his head. Kolivan had filed that knowledge away for later use.

Right now, however, he had a different problem - the boy needed to relax. Any illness that affected a Galra was usually a problematic one, and stress was a common denominator in making all bad things worse.

Keith had spoken but the look on his face told him that the words the furthest from truth as it was possible to be. Kolivan considered telling Keith he’d have to spend three years on an undercover mission with six other blade members, without knowing they were members, until they all returned to the base for their reports before he became a convincing liar. Kolivan also knew that would be entirely unproductive.

“ _You are anxious about the effects quintessence has been having on your body,_ ” Kolivan snorted. “ _It is reasonable and entirely normal to be so._ ”

Keith twitched, glaring at him, then flopping back down onto the floor. “Easy for you to say - you’d be a bit worried if you were turning peach, or green,” he grunted. It was indeed a fair point.

“I probably would, and I am certain you would tell me what I am telling you,” Kolivan agreed. “I have spoken to Coran, but I can only agree with his findings; nothing is inherently wrong with you.”

“ _Kolivan, I’m turning purple!_ ” Keith blurted, siting up again, face seething. Had he larger ears, they may have been flattened against his head. “ _I know that’s not very rare in the galaxy, but on Earth I’d be hauled off to a science lab! It’s not normal!_ ”

“ _You are the product of two species Keith, you should have seen the odd occurrences Regris went through before he grew out his tail. Some unexpected changes are inevitable, especially when there are no others of your same biological structure._ ” Kolivan reasoned. “ _You also fly a giant red lion shaped spaceship which turns into a robot - I am given to understand from Hunk that would also be considered unusual on your world._ ”

Keith frowned again, unable to retort, but he seemed to be listening.

“I wonder, how much do you know of your Galra parent?” Kolivan asked. “Besides the words you remembered from childhood?”

Keith blinked. “My mum?” He bit his lip in thought. “I don’t remember anything really. Just those words really, my father used to tell me she was with the stars; it wasn’t until I got out here that I figured he didn’t mean she was dead.”

“You don’t even know her name?” Kolivan asked, ears flicking in surprise when Keith shook his head.

“All I had was my blade,” he said. “I used to think it was maybe African or something, but when I was in the garrison I took it to some of the linguists, and they couldn’t figure it out; they just assumed it was some kind of tribe symbol.”

“Well, that was not entirely incorrect,” Kolivan mused, holding out his hand; Keith raised an eyebrow, but handed over his blade, activating it to its full size and placing it the outstretched claws.

“What is it?” He asked.

“It is old, we do not use this symbol anymore, whoever your mother was, she came from one of the Clans that created the Blade of Marmora; this is one of the family talismans, it indicates the power of their Druids,” Kolivan explained. “I cannot say who it belonged to though, as I suspect it was passed down multiple times before reaching you,” he paused. “I could look into it - it may reveal something regarding your condition.”

“You would do that?” Keith asked, eyes widening.

“It will not be the first time I have searched for a halflings family, I doubt It will be the last. We have many records. It will be no trouble,” Kolivan said, turning the blade and giving the handle back to his youngest recruit. “However, this is on the condition you be mindful of yourself, he warned.

Keith looked what the humans had often called ‘ _sheepish_ ’, and nodded, taking his blade back.

“Thank you Kolivan,” he said.

Kolivan nodded, and left the training ring. With proper motivation, Keith was not a difficult youngling; hopefully this would stop his needless self-exhaustion.

It would do no good for him, Voltron, or the Resistance. Or Kolivan’s nerves.

* * *

The soft hiss of the pistons in the pneumatic door alerted Hunk to the arrival of his teammate, and the sound of the familiar, plodding, put sure footsteps told him which one it was.

“Keith!” He grinned, turning over his shoulder from the refrigeration cabinet - he was loathe to call it a fridge given its size. “Did Coran find anything?” He asked, having collected the cheese and ham sandwich food goo from storage.

“Nothing, that’s the problem. Whatever this is, there’s nothing physically wrong with me that the healing pods and scanners can pick up,” Keith sighed. “Kolivan thinks if I could find my mother, or information on her, it might tell us something.”

“Your mother?” Hunk asked. He’d always kind of wondered about Keith’s mother. He guessed she was the one he got the Galra stuff from, but Keith hardly ever mentioned her. “Do you remember anything?” He asked. Then Hunk stopped, looking more closely at Keith’s current type of resting bitch face. “Dude, are you alright? You look all pale and pained again.”

“Back,” Keith mumbled - another pleasant side effect of his skin change was the lower back pain and constant headaches. “Hunk I don’t even know her name - only that going by my dagger she was involved with the blade one way or another,” he sighed, going to the cabinet. “Do we have any more of that casserole food goo left?”

“Nah, you ate it all by yourself, what gives? I was looking forward to some of that!” Hunk said. “Can’t you have some of the cauliflower cheese food goo instead? It’s amazing! Fermenting Kalternecker’s milk really helped improve the ‘ _cheese_ ’ flavour part!”

Keith made a face. “You know I can’t, not unless you want me to gas out the hallway, at best.”

Hunk made a face to match Keith’s; indeed he did, and he had learned the hard way after sneaking in some cabbage-like substances from the Olkari into the processor when Keith was making his usual meat-based food goo. Keith had been down on the floor in minutes puking his guts up, and had needed two days to get over the resulting spasms. He said his doctors had always said it was just an intolerance. Like gluten, or dairy.

Now, they were both was _however-long-they-had-been-in-space_ wiser, and Hunk called Galra stuff on Keith’s weird dietary requirements. Fruit was ok in small doses, breads and dairy were also fine regularly, as was seafood, but anything green or vaguely root-like was like poison.

“I’m teasing, there’s some steak and peppercorn sauce food goo at the very back,” Hunk said, pointing to a large red container. “Hey, do you think Kolivan would bring in some Galra food? I’d be interested to see how you stomach that.”

“I’m not eating Galra food unless I have no choice - what if there’s something in it that makes this purple stuff worse?” Keith said, dumping the box on the table beside his bowl and spooning a generous amount out for himself.

“But what if you’re missing some kind of Galra vitamin you only get from Galra food?” Hunk suggested. “And that’s why you’ve got purple psoriasis? If you haven't been getting the right nutrients for over a decade then its bound to have some sort of effect.”

Keith turned a shade paler. “I hadn’t thought of that,” he blinked. “I’ll ask Antok. He’s always eating something.”

“I’ll go look through the castle archives; they have tons of food goo recipes, and there’s stuff about Galra. There has to be some crossover if Zarkon and Alfor were old pals originally,” Hunk added, grin widening as he remembered.

“You don’t mind?”

“It’s no skin off my back if it helps you get yours back to normal,” Hunk assured his friend.

Keith smiled; one of those rare, genuine, happy smiles he hardly ever used. “Thank you. I’ll find Antok before I go for the scans later.”

“But first, let’s finish this food goo; I think the steak one turned out really well this time!”

If Keith noticed that Hunk let him steal the comfiest share, he didn’t mention it.

* * *

The sauna had been an inadvertent discovery, but one Lance fully appreciated after a full day of training. It was hidden in the pool room behind a door that was camouflaged into the wall.

It had been one of the Galra form the Blade of Marmora who had introduced it to him. Allura had directed many of them there when they were staying on the ship since the steam helped in keeping their fur hygienic. It also meant that they didn’t get their it sopping wet - which after years of fighting together, Lance had learned through personal experience was a very bad thing, and made them extremely angry and twitchy.

As such, he was unsurprised to be joined by Antok in the sauna room. Antok was a stand-up guy frankly; he liked a good joke and was always up for one of the human games Lance had been teaching him like ‘ _I-spy_ ’. The sauna walls were see through from the inside, so they had the whole pool area to choose from.

Most of the time they either talked or sat in silence depending on company. Kolivan always made Antok clam up like he was still on duty, and when Thace was around, he tended to forget Lance, but mostly they got along well.

When Keith came into the sauna, both eyebrows and ears perked in shock. Keith - presumably due to some weird Galra DNA - had started avoiding the pool room like it contained acid rather than water. He hated it, and didn’t approach except for the showers, which were the closest to his room.

“This is unusual,” Antok noted as Keith slipped inside and sat down with them. It wouldn’t have been strange but for the loose white shirt and shorts he was wearing. Lance could see purple patches poking out from his biceps and from his thighs, and wondered just how much of his friend’s body was affected by the ‘ _purple psoriasis_ ’.

“Sorry, I won’t be long, I just wanted to ask something - Hunk had an idea earlier that maybe this purple stuff is because I'm not really eating anything that a normal Galra diet has?” Keith explained. “I was wondering if you could point us in the direction of some places, or had a list of things that might break worth testing.”

“That is sound judgement; I will prepare a list and try to bring back some non-perishable items the next time I land at a colony; are you well otherwise?”

“Head and back, but that’s nothing new, I just wish I knew why, and that Coran had painkillers.”

As it turned out, Altean painkillers didn’t mix well with any of the paladins besides Allura. Shiro had been vomiting for three days straight when he took some for a headache. Pidge had taken them for premenstrual cramps and ended up on her period for two entire months (a time slice which they all agreed to never mention again). Hunk had taken some for a fractured shoulder after a mission, and his hair had fallen out (the healing pods had fixed it). Lance had taken them for something too and ended up breaking out in angry spots and rashes for a couple of weeks.

By then, Coran agreed to test them and discovered that Altean medicine reacted very strangely to human biology. Lance dreaded to think what they would do to Keith’s already mixed up body.

“You were okay with ibuprofen, right?” Lance asked. Keith nodded.

“They were fine, well, I think they made me a bit hyper as a kid, but I grew out of that. I just burn through them a bit quicker. Why?”

“I still have some from when we left earth,” Lance confessed. “I’ve been saving them for extremely high-level emergencies, but since that stupid Druid doused you in quintessence and your Galra biology decided to have a fit, I think I can classify this as one.

“How the hell did you hide those from Pidge?” Keith blinked, wide eyed.

“The less you know, the safer we all are,” Lance said, putting a hand on Keith’s shoulder seriously. “She can never know I had them during the-time-we-do-not-speak-of,” he stressed.

Keith stared, then nodded once, very solemnly. “Agreed. Can I get them after I go see Coran? He might detect the drugs in the healing pod,” he asked voice a little hoarse, as if he were expecting ridge to have bugged the sauna (considering all her felonies back on earth, Lance couldn’t call him paranoid).

“If you happen to pass by my room exactly two hours, there may or may not be a dog-like plushie with a secret compartment hidden inside where you will find the resources you require,” Lance said.

“Two hours, got it.”

* * *

Thoughts of battles and diplomacy were dashed from Allura's mind when a mop of familiar dark hair burst from the medical wing, barrelled into her and sent the princess crashing to the floor.

“Allura! I’m sorry! I didn’t see you!” Keith blurted hurriedly, getting back to his feet before helping her to her own.

Allura blinked, shocked for a moment by the hasty tone in Keith’s voice and his skin - the peach tone was paler than she had seen him in some time.

“It’s nothing, just an accident,” she said warily, unsettled by the look on his face. “Keith are you alright?” She asked; Allura felt like she had been asking that question a lot lately.

Every day without any clarification on what was happening to Keith was cause for concern for everyone. Not just because of Voltron, but because he was their friend.

“I just, feel a bit headsick that’s all,” Keith mumbled, heading for the hall that would take him to the lion chambers after a quick ‘ _thank you_ ’.

Allura watched him leave then slipped into the medical wing. “Coran?” She called out. “I just saw Keith - he said he was feeling unwell, has something happened?” She asked.

Coran turned in his chair. “Princess! Ah, nothing new exactly, but rather I’ve made some observations that may give us some cause for concern, especially young Keith,” he said. “I will explain - I was hoping I could ask for your assistance anyway.”

“Of course, anything,” allure said, joining him at his desk. “What can I do?”

“I’d like to ask you if you would try examining Keith’s quintessence; whatever is happening to him, I fear I cannot stop with the resources I have.”

“You… want me to use my magic?” Allura blinked.

“Yes princess,” Coran said. “So far none of my biological or chemical tests have produced any indication as to what could be causing the physical and full physiological changes in Keith’s body,” he explained. “I was wondering if you would mind trying an exam of his quintessence? It might be something a bit more than a simple illness.”

Allura blinked. “What do you mean physiological changes?” She asked suspiciously. “I thought it was just his skin?”

Coran pointed to the scans that had been produced during Keith’s last healing pod session. The pods provided the medical data for the inhabitants of the castle who used them, scanning everything from neurological systems to integumentary systems.These particular scans showed Keith’s bones and muscles; Coran guided Allura’s gaze with his finger to a shot of Keith’s head, around his ears.

“This here," he said. "It would explain the headaches.”

Allura felt herself inhale sharply at the changes to the ship of Keith’s ears. The human ones seemed to be changing, reforming, only the beginning stages beneath the surface of his skin. Functionally, they were improving far beyond human auditory function according to the notes on the screen.

“I don’t think it will be soon, but I can see new bone protrusions developing in the spots where the ear shafts on Galra skulls emerge, and this change in his skin also began there, and then there’s here,” Coran said, changing the scan to one of Keith’s lower back.

“This bone here, Pidge and Lance said it was a vestigial one which has since been abandoned by the human evolutionary process when I was updating the medical system to account for human biology a little more closely,” he said, pointing to a bone that jutted out a little at the base of Keith's spine. “This is a scan of Keith’s uhh…. ‘ _Koksycs_ ’, from before the changes started,” he said before swiping to a more recent scan. “This is a more recent one; as you can see, its function no longer seems to be vestigial. From what the scans show, living muscle and tissue is beginning to grow, around Keith’s ‘ _Koksycs_ ’, and it is slowly starting to extend.”

Indeed, it was vestigial no longer. Allura could plainly see the formation of bone that was beginning to develop. “What exactly was this bone vestigial of?” She asked, though she had a feeling she already knew.

“A tail; according to pidge humans descend from a species on their planet know as apes. In early stages of their evolution, they were actually very similar to Galra in some respects - see?” He brought up a new picture of some frankly alarming looking creatures with a mix of fur, gangly limbs, large ears and tails between them. “These are some kind of apes that exists on earth. Lance had the pictures from a trip to something he called a zoo. This one is called a ' _Gohriylla_ ' - it has a similar body structure to modern Galra. This one is less closely related now, but they do share a common ancestor. Lance called it a ' _Leeemuhr_ ', and you can see it has the ears and tail,” he pointed to a small white creature with a stripy tail. “This one here that is holding onto Lance's head and grooming him is a ' _Chympanziii_ '; Pidge says they are the closest genetic relative to the human species, who have lost the ears and tail because they are higher in the evolutionary ladder, and more intelligent.”

“Do you think this is how Keith’s parents were able to reproduce?” Allura asked. “For such different species, I must admit I did wonder; Galra hybrids usually have a closer physical match between both parents, but humans couldn’t be further from that in comparison to the Galra. Especially with what I have learned from Pidge regarding human reproduction. Their females carry children for nine months!”

“Inside them?” Coran blinked, then shook his head. “Regardless, I think it probably played a significant part; unlike our genetic coding which is recreated anew with new birth, humans carry all the DNA of their ancestors. They can trace their family lines to the areas of their planet where they originally evolved from.”

“Truly?!”

“Indeed, but I think that is what helped with Keith’s conception, as well as contributed to his current condition,” Coran said. “The genetic similarities were very easy for his mother’s ‘ _DNA_ ’ to find, which is also why I think I can’t find anything inherently wrong with him. As far as his body is concerned, this is just a natural development. There’s nothing to fix because his body and the pods can’t find anything genetically wrong,” he sighed.

“I see,” Allura said. “So, if quintessence had caused this sudden change, an exam may reveal the spell, or even reverse it.”

There was no question in her mind as to whether or not she was willing to comply with Coran’s request. “Of course I will try Coran,” she promised. “Keith be willing, but I cannot guarantee anything. You know my understanding of magic is untrained and untested.”

Keith had put a lot of trust he didn’t often give by allowing them to try, to even bring this problem he faced to them in the first place, and Allura wanted to make sure it was trust well placed.

“That is all I ask Princess,” Coran said simply. “Unless the paladins feel like kidnapping one of Zarkon’s druids?”

“I think not- wait is that a transmission?” She asked looking to the screen, where a purple alert had popped up. Coran blinked, before quickly bring it to the forefront of the screen.

_Hailing……_

_Hailing……_

_Hailing……_

CONECTION ESTABLISHED; TRANSMISSION LINK SECURE FOR 07:00 DOBASH.

_00:00:00:00:07:76_

**◦** Coran, what is it?

_00:00:00:00:06:53_

  * I need some information on how the Druids use quintessence - Keith’s condition is getting worse.



_00:00:00:00:06:17_

**◦** You’ll have to be more specific; Druid magic isn’t exactly known for its respect of nature’s laws.

_00:00:00:00:05:79_

  * Keith’s human side seemed to be a better match than we originally thought to Galra genetics; humans have memorial genetics.



_00:00:00:00:05:02_

**◦** Drulaxak. Their common ancestors are a match to Galra genetics then?

_00:00:00:00:04:80_

  * Indeed. Vestigial bone still exists in their bodies and one of them is turning into a tail, and his ears are redeveloping.



_00:00:00:00:03:67_

**◦** Ah. Is it too much to ask that human ancestors didn’t have fur?

_00:00:00:00:02:13_

  * They’re descended from creatures with fur yes, I’m expecting it any day now, if I’m honest. Genetically it's not wrong, so I can’t stop it with what I know about human biology.



_00:00:00:00:01:49_

**◦** And you think quintessence triggered it? I’ll try looking around. I can’t guarantee anything. Mother is most untrustworthy.

_00:00:00:00:00:17_

  * Thank you.



_00:00:00:00:00:04_

**◦** Vrepit sa.

_00:00:00:00:00:00_

_Securing……_

_Closing link……_

_Checking destination and source feeds……_

CONNECTION CLOSED; TRANSMISSION LINK SCANS COMMENCING. RE-ENCRYPTING SIGNAL CODES FOR SECURITY.

Sighing, Allura watched as Coran closed the protected transmission wavelength, and set up the security scans. It was risky to send such information out, but they were running out of ideas to help Keith, and in order to do that, she and Coran both would accept any and all help they could.

* * *

The black, red, and blue lions were surprisingly flexible. Since Keith had been replaced on his infiltration mission Black had not minded sharing her cockpit between two pilots; well, sometimes she and Red seemed to growl at each other over who would fly in them. Shiro had no understanding of Red; he hadn’t earned her respect the same way Keith had, and any communication with her was as necessary. He knew Black very well though, and Black liked Keith quite a bit.

‘ _Fierce_ ’ she always said when he was in the hangar. She liked his bold method of leadership and willingness to bring the attack to their enemies. Keith was good at the bigger picture too.

But only as necessary. She found him too headstrong sometimes, that tad bit too determined, too independent - not a bad quality in itself, but not a good one in a stable leadership requirement.

She liked him though, well enough to share him with Red (who did so extremley grudgingly, if lion gossip was anything to be believed). So, when Keith ambled into the hangar looking like the floor had fallen from beneath his feet, she grumbled in concern.

Shiro watched from atop her paw as Keith approached Red; almost immediately, her eyes flared to life, and she dropped into a crouch, opening her jaw and allowing him into the cockpit.

Black gave him a nudge, a little push, and instantly Shiro followed. Red eyed him for a moment, before allowing him to follow Keith up. “Keith?” He started, looking around and finding him in the bunk at the back of the cockpit (for long term flights).

“What’s wrong? Did Coran find something?” He’d passed the med bay when he was heading to the hangars, and already knew that Keith would be having some more scans from Allura.

Keith rolled over a little to look cross the top of his shoulder at Shiro. “I’m growing a tail,” Keith sighed. “That’s why my back hurts,” he shrugged. “And my ears are changing too, so that’s why my head hurts; it doesn’t take a genius to figure out what’s happening to me Shiro.”

Indeed, it was something that had been staring at them for weeks, even months. Nobody could say it out loud though. Not to Keith, who was so insecure over his parentage. “We can’t know that for certain - Coran and Allura just need more time. There’s only so much we can tell them about our bodies - none of us are biologists.”

Coran did find something,” Keith grated. “Human DNA and Galra genetics share some similarities, or they did when humans were still evolving. That’s how I was born in the first place, so Coran can’t reverse it because technically there’s nothing wrong. There talking about quintessence, Shiro. Magic. I’m pretty sure that’s a last-ditch effort.”

“Keith, they just want to make sure were considering all options,” Shiro said, sitting down on the floor beside the bunk. “And even if it is, do you really want to brush it aside and let this…”

He stopped.

“Let it what? Win?”

That’s what I was going to say,” Shiro said. “But actually, I wonder if it would be better to do the opposite. If this is a natural part of your body, then why try to stop it? You shouldn’t try to hide what you are Keith, and I’m sure Red would feel the same way,”

Shiro didn’t hear the rumble in his mind, but he felt the purr through the metal of Red’s chassis.

“What?!” Keith snarled, bolting up right, horror on his face. “After all the Galra have done to you, how can you say you want me to accept this?”

“I’m not saying I want you to turn into a Galra - really, I know I don’t,” Shiro said quickly. “But not for the reasons you think. I know no-one on this ship would turn you away if it’s something that’s happens! I just… trying to fight something like this, it can take everything from you,” he said, his hand going to the prosthetic wrist of his opposite hand. “I know it’s not the same, but I know a little about what that’s like. I know this isn’t what you want to hear, but you need to accept this part of you, whether you want to or not.”

Keith’s face was like a thundercloud, but not that raging kind; he was angry, that much was clear, but Shiro could see he was listening. “You make it sounds like its easy; I can’t accept something I don’t understand Shiro. A prosthetic alien arm is still an arm, you have some control over it. I can’t stop this, I can’t stop my own body from changing because nobody, Galra, Altean, human, least of all me, understands how it works,” he said, voice low as he got to his feet.

Before Shiro could stop him, he was leaving the hatch for the ground below.

“I know you’re just trying to help, but right now the only thing that’s going to help is making this go away.”

Shiro watched him leave, then stopped and slumped back against the wall of red’s cockpit. He wished it were that easy, but lately things had been quiet. No major attacks, and with Keith in such bad shape, the team had chosen to take a trip through the wormhole to an isolated part of the galaxy.

The tension was starting to get to everyone, not knowing what was happening to their team-mate, and with nothing else to distract them. Shiro just wished he knew how to take it away.

* * *

One thing that impressed Katie about the castle ship was the structure. Of course, the technological aspects were far more intriguing, but it was like appreciating a good casing on a home built hard-drive. The metal that had been used (was it even metal? Katie was unsure) was resilient and twenty times sturdier than even the strongest of elements or metals found on earth, but thin, lightweight, perfect for starship construction.

But terrible for blocking out noise - whoever designed the sleeping quarters hadn’t considered putting sound-proofing into the walls. Since their first night on the ship, Katie Holt had been able to hear the others in the night, which usually meant staying too late with code and her fuzzles until she passed out with a need for sleep until she got used to all the noise.

Hunk tossed and turned all night long, usually culminating in him falling out of bed and onto the floor. Since he had placed a mattress beside his bed on his first night, Katie assumed that this was a normal occurrence.

Lance snored, loud enough for her to hear him three rooms away. It was a wonder Shiro, across the hall from Katie herself could sleep at all, and even then, he was always talking and mumbling to himself in slumber.

It was always nonsense. Despite everything Shiro had been through, Katie had never once heard him having a nightmare. No, that had been Keith. at first, he just seemed to get stupid ones that made him wake up a lot, then later into what must have been their first year as paladins, when he started questioning his human heritage, they got worse.

No words, just tossing and turning until he started awake; Keith had always been the easiest to hear since their rooms were next door to each other. At the time, she had assumed it was just some of the stress they had been enduring. A night owl at heart anyway, she had ignored the warnings in favour of her coding. Everyone had been stressed and tense with Zarkon showing up at every corner of the galaxy seemingly like magic (well, it had been, but none of them had known that at the time).

Katie wished she hadn’t ignored it; maybe it would have made things easier helped more, helped Keith. Maybe. She hated that word.

In any case, Katie heard lots of things at night, and recently Keith’s nightmares had come back. She couldn’t really blame him for it. He was in pain too, enough that Voltron was now a last resort so that he didn’t have to fly. But she was no doctor, and at best all she could do was offer a cheerful smile, support him when needed, and act as if nothing had changed (it wouldn’t, whatever the outcome). The only problem with that was, well, Keith wasn’t so good at leaning on people.

So, Katie spent most of her free time working on a multitude of things that kept her mind elsewhere. There was nothing too urgent in regards to the war, temporarily at least, so the current job she was occupying herself was a conversion system.

Often she and her fellow paladins had wondered how long they had been in space. Certainly at least one year by now. It was so hard to tell with only the stars for company and differing environments on the planets they visited.

So, perhaps a month or so ago, she had started trying to work it out. She taken comparison calendars of the old Altean system used by Allura and Coran on the castle ship, the modern empire calendar used by the empire and the Blade of Marmora, and even the Olkarian system of movements to try and translate the passage of time into something humans could understand.

It was difficult, especially with only the basest understanding of the foreign languages. It was that exact issue that brought her to Keith’s door. After a couple of gentle knocks, the door shifted aside slightly, unlocking itself.

“Its open, who is it?” Keith’s muffled voice called pout, face down in his pillow to her left.

His back was bothering him - that was the reason for the change in sleeping position. Katie knew from an overnight camp in the red lion that Keith slept cuddling every single duvet he could get his hands on, and none of it covering him. Even in full armour. Never face down.

Stepping inside she smiled as he poked his eyes up to see who had come in.

“Pidge? What is it?

“I was working on the space calendars again and some of the Galran was tripping me up again - could you check it over for me?”

“Sure,” he said simply, leaning up and making space for her beside his legs and space for her laptop on the pillow he’d been semi-smothering himself in.

“This part here,” she said, pointing on the screen. “It’s just throwing off the entire database and I can’t read any of it.”

Keith frowned, mouthing some of the words to himself. “It's undated,” he said finally. "It's an old food bill or something so it has numbers, but it isn't dated as part of a calendar.

“No wonder,” Katie sighed, leaning over to the laptop, lounge between her lips as she battled through the code that had dragged the unwanted file into her otherwise perfect programme.

Keith looked tense, as if he were expecting her to start asking him questions. 

“How are you doing with it?” He asked. “Was that the only part you had trouble reading?”

“Yeah, I was almost ready to start the processing, then I found that stupid thing,” she grunted, hitting the enter key with a flourish. “But that’s it! Providing there aren’t any more blips, it should-"

A screen flashed - ‘ _processing complete. Show results?_ ’

“Wow, you really are amazing. It really worked?” Keith blinked, sitting up a little straighter despite his wince as she hit the ' _yes_ ' icon quicker than a tick.

“It really worked!”

“What does it say?” Keith asked. “How did you do this again?”

“I’ve used our birthdays and Earth's timeline as markers, then I factored in the Galran, Olkarian, and Altean calendars, imported them into the same system, but it took a while to gather all the information, especially since a lot of the alien calendars predate us,” Katie explained. “The Alteans had invented their equivalent of the steam train when we were still homo neanderthalis,” she added for clarification.

Keith furrowed his eyebrows. “It’s so strange to think about, even a lost civilisation like the Altean one being so much older than ours, especially when we talk to Allura and Coran every day,” he said, blinking the thought away and shaking his head. “So, how long have we been out here? Can you try guess what date it is?

“Working on it,” she said, pushing her hair back over her shoulder - it was getting long again, but now that Matt was back it was better to let it grow out. She’d kind of missed it, and she wasn’t trying to hide anything now, so there was no reason not to.

A few more clicks, and the date on the computer changed from Altean to human.

_23rd October, 2037._

“Taking into account the date that we left the Garrison in blue, we have been in space for three years, 4 months and 19 days,” she said, after a moment of mental arithmetic.

Three years. Was that really it? It felt like longer. Holy crap, that meant she was eighteen! Did that have any intergalactic importance, or was it still only a thing on Earth that she was technically a legal adult now? A blinking icon flashed up, distracting her for a moment. It was Keith’s profile, and had a note as being updated.

Clicking on, she blinked at the red text - the text which had changed, just beside his birth date;  _23 October, 2016: Aged 21 years, 0 months, 0 days_.

“Oh my god, Keith! It’s your birthday!” Katie blurted once she realised the dates matched up.

“What?” Keith blinked. “It is?”

“It’s the 23rd of October!”

“Huh,” he blinked. “Wow, look at that, I can drink nunvill now,” he chuckled.

Katie stared at him, then an idea formed in her head. “We should do something! Yours is the first birthday we can actually celebrate since we started this crazy trip!”

“Why?” Keith shrugged. “It doesn’t matter out here, does it? It’s not like I can go out and buy you alcohol a zillion miles away from Earth.”

“That’s not the point! It could be fun - don’t you miss celebrating things like this with your-” Katie cut herself off before walking into Keith’s mountainous family emotional molehill. “-Shiro?”

“I guess, but it’s not that important.”

The words had Katie to her feet and marching out the door in search of the other paladins. She had been looking for a way to help Keith distract himself from his ‘ _turning-into-a-Galra_ ’ funk.

This just might be what they all needed.

“Guys!” She shouted, running down the hall and banging on doors before Keith could catch her. “Guess what day it is!”

Keith tried to stop her, he really did, but once Lance had dashed off to Allura and Hunk had entrapped him in a big-armed hug, there was simply no stopping it.

“We should hold a celebration! It will be late, but it will be most interesting to partake in this human tradition!” Allura beamed once everyone had congregated on the bridge.

“I can make a pretty good piñata,” Lance offered; Hunk’s eyes sparkled.

“I _love_ those!”

After the concept of a birthday was explained to the blades, even Kolivan seemed interested.

“We make an effort to practice several different cultural events for those of mixed Galra heritage within the blade,” he said to Keith. “I should like to take part in this.”

Keith tried very hard to protest, but they fell on deaf ears; the planning for Keith’s birthday party had begun.

Katie watched his face as he flustered, trying to convince them to drop the idea between hugs or claps on the shoulder, or the birthday bumps from lance.

A smug smile crept onto her face, knowing that in spite of his protests, this was the happiest she had seen him in months.

whether Keith admitted it or not, he needed this. He needed to know that people could care for him unconditionally. Right now, he was doubting and questioning his entire existence; what better way the help him then celebrate the day it began?

* * *

For Keith's birthday week. Better late than never right? I have too much love for Galra Keith and his suffering but I promise it'll get better. please disregard my hogwash biology

Crash land on my [**Tumblr**](http://ncj700.tumblr.com/) & [**Twitter**](https://twitter.com/Ncj700) for updates, or just loads of galra and Voltron stuff. 


	2. Identity

“What customs of this Earth celebration should we be aware of?” Antok asked Keith the morning after Pidge’s discovery in the breakfast hall. “I will be back from my mission in five Quintants, and would like to participate.”

The blades were sitting around the table with the humans, Alteans, and Pidge's two fuzzles (she refused to call the tribbles), and despite Keith’s reluctance, the subject of conversation had inevitably turned to party planning.

“Well, most humans give the person whose birthday it is presents, or cards,” Hunk explained between mouthfuls of porridge food goo. “And we have a big party with cake, games… it varies though. Depends on the country.”

Keith nodded, shovelling in a mouthful of what he guessed was bacon food goo. It had a similar taste at least, but he tried not to focus on it; food goo never tasted good despite Hunk’s attempts. It was just something else he had learned since coming into space; he had completely different taste buds.

“What is a ‘ _country_ ’?” Regris asked.

“It’s, you know, where a bunch of people of different races live...” Lance started. “Wait, you don’t have different countries?” He asked.

Regris, Antok, and Kolivan said nothing, simply watching and waiting patiently for an explanation, effectively answering the question with their silence.

“Well, on Earth,” Keith started. “The land masses are broken up into different shapes, and many of them have different weather patterns, you know that, right?”

“Yes, since we learned how close the empire is getting to you home world we have been monitoring the planets in System X9Y,” Antok nodded. The Alteans also seemed to be listening intently.

“Well, even though humans all share a common ancestor, because there are so many huge land masses - continents - we all developed slightly differently, and developed different systems of government and cultures, sometimes even on the same piece of land; those areas are called Countries,” Keith said. “We even developed physical differences. Well, surface ones. Pidge, Shiro and I come from places with lighter skin tones, whereas Hunk and Lance are the opposite; Shiro’s eyes are also a slightly different shape.”

Hunk looked to Pidge. “Got a map on your laptop?” He asked, after seeing the bewilderment on the faces of the Alteans and Galrans. “It might make more sense if we have a visual aid.”

“I should do, hang on,” she said, getting to her feet and hurrying off to get it; her two fuzzles remained at the table munching on some rust food goo that had been developed for them.

“I think I understand, but it is most unusual in this galaxy, most planets only evolve one race - to have multiple varieties of the same species, with the exception of flora and fauna, is most strange to us,” Regris said. “All these ‘ _countries_ ’ have different celebrations for birthdays, I assume?”

“Yup! I’m from a country called Samoa, and we only really celebrate on big years that people age to, starting with twenty-one, like Keith is now,” Hunk said. “I mean we still have birthdays, they just aren’t too big of a deal till then.”

“The only ones we did anything special for were the parties for my sisters turned fifteen,” Lance said. “They got a big flouncy dress for the day and some other stuff, but it’s just for girls. Aside from that it’s mostly just bigger parties for eighteen or twenty-one like Hunk said. Milestone years.”

“So, what is to be done for this celebration?” Kolivan asked.

“Well, I’ll find a way to make a piñata, unless that guy at the space mall has one,” Lance mused. “But I don’t know, balloons? Cake? Party rings? We’ve _got_ to have party rings, and presents.”

“You mean gifts; should these gifts be specific things?” He asked, pulling a screen out on his small, personal data tablet. “Are these party rings considered valuable? Are they common gifts?”

“What are balloons?” Coran asked.

“No, party rings are biscuits with coloured icing!” Hunk corrected. “Those are a type of birthday party food! Balloons are... uh... Keith how would you describe balloons?”

Keith frowned, before pulling up a screen and tracing the rough outline of one with his finger onto it. “They’re really stretchy plastic. You blow air into them until they get about ten times bigger, then tie them off and use them to decorate. Some people pop them for the noise they make or to scare people.”

“There’s always one,” Hunk nodded sagely, before turning back to Kolivan. “Gifts are usually things the person celebrating would appreciate - not necessarily material items, but they can be. Money is good, or things you know they like - for instance, Lance likes skincare, so I used to buy him fancy stuff or arrange a facial at a salon for him during our first couple of years at the academy.”

“Lots of people give others sets of keys at twenty-one. I got keys to my dads' house of my own to use and a big carving of a key for my bedroom wall,” Shiro mused. “It’s a rite of passage sort of thing, but mainly the gifts are supposed to be something you think the receiver will appreciate.”

Regris nodded. “I understand,” he said, turning to Kolivan. “They are like the talismans of the Întări ceremony, or those given during Început,” he reasoned. “Or the Altean Quintant of Glomarfa.”

“Oh! I see now!” Allura brightened. “The celebrations are indeed similar! It makes sense too! Given that humans have shorter lifespans than us, they would celebrate every decaphoeb!”

Pidge had returned, laptop cast off to the side due to the change in topic, and like her fellow paladins, the terms were now confusing her. “What is an Întări ceremony? Or Început?” She asked.

Keith, who had been in the verge of running away from all the birthday chaos, froze before rising and leaving the table. His eyes turned to Kolivan and the other blade members in curiosity. “I’ve hear that first one when you talk about new recruits, but not the second one,” he said.

“Întări is the right of passage for any Galra into adulthood,” Antok said. “It signifies that they are able bodied and able to serve in the army; the practice has been in use since long before Zarkon’s reign. The military once functioned as protection from planetary instability as well as the maintenance of public order and galactic defence before Daibazaal was destroyed, and we continue it, as does the empire, though for different purposes.”

“During the ceremony those close to the initiate would give items that represented the passage of advice and wisdom, or represented their wish for good fortune,” Regris added, he grinned widely at Kolivan, revealing all his sharp canines. “My Uncle for instance hoped I would maintain a calmer head in my later years, and so gave me a sextriptal moonstone!”

“That sounds uh, really cool?” Lance guessed. “What about the other one?”

“Început is when a Galra family produces a youngling,” Kolivan said. “Because it takes a long time for partners to succeed in reproducing, when this occurs it is highly celebrated for a period. I think the only people attempting this of current that I know of are Thace and Ulaz.”

Seeing several faces about to ask the details of Galran reproduction, Keith got to his feet. He had no desire to hear how he possibly came into the world. He already knew from Coran and Allura that the Galra did not lay eggs or carry their young inside them; he did not want to find out the details of his own alien birthing ritual.

“Coran when do you want me to get my scans today? He asked as he passed the man.

“Wait, does that mean that Galra don’t have any genders?”

Pidge and the others were already absorbed in whatever Antok was telling them - Pidge was rapidly paling, and Hunk looked like he had been flying around one too many times in the Blue lion with Lance.

“Come by later this afternoon lad, I’ll be there all day, so whenever you’re done with Red,” Coran said, no questions about why Keith was suddenly dashing from the room.

“Alright.”

“Oh my god, that’s so weird! How the hell would you keep the foetus supplied with nutrients? Oxygen?” Lance exclaimed. “That’s like the plot of a b-movie horror film!”

“Wait, so let me get this straight, it just hangs off the wall? Isn’t that dangerous? What if there was an earthquake? Or a tsunami?” Hunk asked, more confused now than anything else. “Or bugs! That sounds like it attracts bugs!”

Pidge was notably silent, and looked like she wanted the ground to swallow her whole. Or run. Her face had the rare expressions of ‘ _I wish I’d never asked._ ’

Taking his cue to leave, Keith slipped out of the kitchen and made his way to the lion hangars.

* * *

The Red lion was not a lion to be taken lightly.

Difficult to impress and only truly will to bow her head to Black, it was perhaps true that her Paladin had (and will have in the future) the hardest bonding process.

That said, that difficulty came with the best rewards; effort, after all achieves great things, and her bond to her second paladin was easily the strongest of the three.

Bonding to Blue’s paladin had been necessity. He may have passed her tests, but she had a new loyalty, and that was to _Keith_.

Keith had been called upon by Black, and Red would only grudgingly argue with her pack leader, so this had allowed him to leave her temporarily; he had needed guidance though - honest guidance and the Blue paladin had come closest to that in the absence of the Black paladin. And so, Red had accepted a third paladin.

Now, with Black’s paladin back, she was Keith’s again (unless the mission demanded he fly with Black for one reason or another). It had a long time since they flew, however.

Her own scans of her paladin revealed the newest in the list of growing changes to Keith’s body, and she understood as he clambered into the cockpit and collapsed on the bunk.

‘ _Stop. Scared. Confused. Not Galra._ ’

These were the feelings swirling between them put into basic words the lion could not speak. Her paladin was going through troubling things again, like when he started wondering about his mother, the blade, his skin’s reaction to quintessence, and ability to manipulate Galra technology.

‘ _Always Galra,_ ’ she told him. ‘ _Always human. Keith, Red Paladin. Black’s Chosen. Mine,_ ’ she said simply.

She had told him this before and would tell him again. He was her paladin first, her favourite one of all, the first one who earned her respect, the only one with the true drive to do everything that was necessary to win. Alfor had been hesitant, and Blue’s human could not put aside his kindness in the appropriate way (though Red would not call that a weakness).

Keith was hers, no matter what shape his body took. Red had sensed his inheritance the moment his hands gripped the steering levers, adjusted herself accordingly to what suited him best. She had always known.

“You knew?” Keith asked, rolling over on the bunk to look at her control panel.

Red grumbled, the sound deep and warm from the depths of her engines. ‘ _Always. Must know. Cabin environment important. Scans._ ’ She explained; Keith probably hadn’t noticed on Earth but his nitrogen needs were lower, oxygen also. He breathed differently, but not so noticeably that Earth’s atmosphere so or have harmed him.

“Oh... why didn’t you-” he stopped. “Never mind. I already know. I didn’t ask.”

‘ _Not important. My paladin. Nothing else._ ’ Red said again, finally drawing a small smile to the corner of her human’s lips.

“Thanks Red,” Keith said.

The robot rumbled, almost purring, and increased the warmth in her cockpit. ‘ _Rest. Wake later._ ’ She promised - she could see his biorhythms and did not like them.

“Just until Coran needs me to get scanned again,” Keith mumbled, already relaxing in the warmth, finding a comfy spot on his bunk after a slow turn.

‘ _Yes_ ,’ The lion lied. The Altean could wait until her paladin was rested for his scans. ‘ _Rest now._ ’

It didn't take much more convincing, and in moments Red’s scans had picked up the readings that indicated her paladin was sound asleep.

‘ _Red! My Paladin! She speaks!_ ’ a familiar, excitable voice sprouted in her system cognitives. The Green lion’s ‘voice’ was full of curiosity, but the tone indicated she was not looking for conversation.

Red, had she a moveable face, would have done what her paladin did when he grumpy, and frowned, but her eyes lit up on sight of the youngest lion’s pilot standing in front of her. Why was Pidge standing by Red and not Green? The answer was obvious, and Red grumbled outwardly to the youngest paladin - Keith was resting now, and she would not let him be woken before he had done so fully.

The Green paladin didn’t seem phased by the rumble - though Red, a little smugly, notice a small twitch in her shoulders - and she only held up a box.

“Hunk said that Kolivan brought this over from the base he went to check up on last night,” she explained carefully. “I won’t wake him, but can I put them in the cabin? It’s Galra food - it might help him, or just taste good for once. He never eats all the food goo.”

Red considered it, then allowed her jaw to open for her; Green and her paladin might be young and excitable but they knew to respect the space of others. The human quickly did as said, leaving the container - set to stay warm - by the head of Keith’s bunk, then just as quickly and silently disappeared back down to the hangar.

“Don’t worry, I’ll tell the others to leave him alone for a while - sleep will be good for him,” Green’s human promised, before heading back into the rest of the ship.

Red watched her go, then returned her first and most important job; looking after her paladin.

* * *

After what ended up being six hours of uninterrupted sleep, Katie was sent once again to the hangar, this time to wake him up. She didn’t relish the thought of telling Red that, but apparently, she was of a like mind.

Katie guessed as much when she didn’t even have to ask for the red lion to extend her jaw and allow her up into the cockpit to wake up her paladin. He had managed to sleep, and she probably knew the scans were important.

Keith stared at her dopily, munched on some of the food that had been left, then followed her back up to the infirmary, yawning as they went. “You look a lot better for sleeping,” Katie noted - his colour had improved.

“I feel a bit better. Not much, just less tired I guess,” Keith sighed. “You want to come in for the scans?”

“You don’t mind?” She blinked - Keith was normally so cagey about all these changes.

Keith shrugged. “It’s not computers, but I know it’s been making you curious, and if anyone has a shot of helping explain how humans work to Coran, its either you or Hunk. I’m surprised he didn’t ask already.”

“We helped update the system a while ago, but that was before all the purple psoriasis started,” Katie said, quickening her pace to match as Keith caught sight of the infirmary doors, and sped up.

Inside Coran and Allura were waiting for them. “Ah, Pidge too today? Wonderful! You can help me!” Coran beamed. “Allura is going to try examining your Quintessence, to see if we can find a cause there for all this demagogical imbalance, but first another scan,” he said to Keith, gesturing to a pod that was already cleaned. “Pidge, can you help me pick out an older scan that best matches a normal human appearance?”

“I’ll try, just remember I’m not a biologist okay?”

The next twenty minutes were both fascinating and dull at the same time; Katie was kind of shocked to see the exact changes, Keith hadn’t mentioned, like the tail or new ears, but there was only so much they could learn from the scans. At least she helped Coran with some terminology and a few other details he’d had wrong about human body structure.

When the new one came through though, she could see the worry lines growing deeper on Coran’s forehead; the stubs growing on Keith’s skull for the ears were bigger, and the stubby tail had also increased in size by a quarter inch. “The patch on your back has spread too,” Coran mumbled after the scan, when he was measuring the patches of purple that decorated Keith’s body.

He was standing in his underwear, but Katie was unfussed. She’d seen worse in the locker rooms at the Garrison, and Hunk had torn a couple of muscles in his groin and legs during a mission once (they’d all had to hold him down so Coran and Allura could get him into a horizontal pod, and his pants had been cutting off circulation).

The purple patches of skin were much more prominent than she would have thought just by Keith’s words; she knew he wasn’t good at telling people things, and private, but this was much worse than what he had led them to believe.

The entirety of his right foot, to the middle of his shin was covered in patches that were beginning to mesh together, and on both thighs the same patches were creeping down to his knees on both legs. A spraying patch creeping up his belly also indicated that his entire groin area was covered, or at least a great deal of it was affected.

The patch on his back crept up over one shoulder, curling round his shoulders neck and bicep win the left. On the right, from his inner arm down to his lower arm, smaller patches were just starting.

The patch on his eyebrow had got bigger too, now that she looked closely.

This was bad. No wonder red was so worried. If the others knew it was like this, she knew they would be just as worried. Did Shiro know? He was the only person Katie could think of that Keith might share the full extent of his situation with.

“That bad?” Keith asked, sounding like he was trying to joke again.

“Probably worse, but actually it’s not that bad. You suit purple, so it actually doesn’t look horrendous,” she said honestly - in a weird way he did suit the colour. Keith always looked like he was fighting his own skin, but the purple looked more comfortable.

Keith raised an eyebrow, but before he could ask, Coran stepped back so allure could face him.

“I’m warning you now, I have never done this particular spell before, and I don’t know if it will hurt or not; I was told under normal circumstances it would not, but circumstances being what they are…” Allura left it handing, and Keith nodded.

“Just do it,” he encouraged. “It can’t be worse that Zarkon or Haggar’s blasts.”

“That’s the spirit!” Coran said encouragingly.

Allura took a breath, then after a few moments she had summoned the bright pink0ish white energy that took the shape of her Altean magic. Several rings of it circled Keith, floating down from his head over the rest of him.

Amidst her concentration Allura’s eyes snapped open. “I can feel something but… it’s not the magic that hangar attacked you with Keith, I know what it feels like, and it’s not hers,” she said. “It feels…” Allura frowned, and swept the magic around Keith, like a pulsing blanket of light.

After a few moments, it all disputed. Despite her exhaustion, Allura seemed more concerned over whatever her magic had revealed.

“Allura? What is it?” Katie prompted.

Allura bit her lip. “I could be wrong about this,” she warned. “But your quintessence… there is a spell there, but it is old, broken, battered, it has weakened drastically from what it once was,” she said. "The quintessence blast has dismantled it. It no longer functions."

“What do you mean?” Keith asked. “That I’ve been under some sort of druid spell for years and years? But that’s impossible! We’ve only been in space for three years!”

“I know, but that’s what it feels like,” Allura said. “But you were around Galra long before the other paladins.”

Katie watched as Keith’s protests stopped in his throat. “I don’t know anything about my mother Allura, she left before I could remember anything important.”

The dots coming together, Katie frowned in thought as she tried to think of a reason for Keith’s mother to place a druid spell on him. Given that she left her blade behind, it probably wasn’t out of resentment. Why would she put a spell on him to turn him into a-

“Keith, maybe you’re not turning into a Galra at all,” she blurted, the thought coming to her lips before she could think, again.

“What do you mean?” He asked, though the question’s lack of urgency indicated he was already matching her thought process.

“Maybe your mother put that spell on you,” Katie said slowly, hoping the idea wouldn’t upset him. “If you were born looking more Galra, and she wanted you to be safe until you were older, she could have made you look human. If the spell is breaking down, then you aren’t turning _into_ a Galra, you’re turning _back_ to normal.”

* * *

 

Let's pretend, for the sake of this fic, that all the dead members of the Blade of Marmora are alive and well ~~let me live in denial okay?~~

Crash land on my [ **Tumblr**](http://ncj700.tumblr.com/) & [ **Twitter**](https://twitter.com/Ncj700) for updates, or just loads of galra and Voltron stuff. 


	3. Home

Keith tried to remain positive after his conversation with Katie and the Alteans, but it was difficult. Especially when his body was determined to back up all their thoughts not even twenty-four hours later.

Earlier in the morning, Keith had stumbled out of his room thinking he only had a headache on top of his ‘ _always-there-because-I’m-growing-alien-ears_ ’ headache. When he had entered the kitchen Antok and Regris had been the first to alert him to the changes; they had offered to help clean the new floppy protrusions, sensitive and sore from growing out of his scalp in his sleep, before they left.

Keith had intended to slap some plasters over the sore stubs and be done with it. Then he’d seen his reflection and how matted his hair was from where they had appeared overnight and the blood had dried into it.

He’d grudgingly changed his mind and allowed them to help get his hair clean without washing it. If there was any other indication that his body was changing needed, then the slight deafness on his human ears and the infuriating itch they were giving him was probably one of them, and his increased aversion to water.

“I still don’t understand - they have genders, but they _don’t_ have genders?” Lance asked. Katie over their morning food goo.

Lance had been struggling with the concept of alien physiology on each planet they had ever landed on ever since they first started their space trip, but Keith didn’t have the heart to stop him talking just yet.

If Katie - who had been sworn to absolute secrecy with Allura and Coran - was right about her theory, then Keith needed to know as much as he possibly could about Galra physiology.

And if she was - _hopefully_ \- wrong, well, he’d still probably need to know just in case Allura and Coran couldn’t find a way to reverse the changes. So, here he was, sitting in the kitchen, still trying to clean blood out of his thick, suddenly silkier, fluffier hair where his alien genetics had decided he needed a new set of ears, listening to the other paladins talk about Galra reproduction.

“I think it’s like they have ‘ _men_ ’ and ‘ _women_ ’ but not the way we think of it,” the green paladin explained. “It doesn’t have the same nomenclature with biological function as it might amongst humans or the Olkari. Physical appearance and function is irrelevant, as all Galra are capable of reproducing, and unlike humans, they don’t carry their young.”

“Okay, I get that part, but I also really want to know more about what Antok and Kolivan mentioned yesterday-”

“ _Lance_ ,” Keith pleaded, trying not to wince as he tried to comb his fingers through the remaining snags on his head. “My head hurts enough without finding out about how my alien mother got pregnant.”

“Technically that’s impossible - Kolivan told us Galra don’t get pregnant,” Lance said, just as Hunk handed him another bowl of bacon food goo.

“Eat some more, you look all pale again.”

“You know what I mean! Just- Stop? _Please?_ ” Keith pleaded, taking the bowl. “Thanks Hunk.

“Fine” the other paladin shrugged.

“Aren’t you even a little bit curious?” Lance asked. “I’d have driven Kolivan mad with questions by now.”

“No,” Keith said quickly. There was a line as to how far his interest in Galran reproduction went. “I’d like to know some things, but not that.”

“What do you remember?” Katie asked from the seat beside him, chin resting on her clasped hands and an eyebrow raised.

Keith couldn’t remember when he had made the switch from Pidge to Katie in his head, but he hadn’t been reprimanded for its use when the others weren’t around, so felt no need to change back.

“You remember those Galra words,” she added. “Are you sure there isn’t anything else your dad told you?”

Keith shook his head. “I just remember waking up, and she wasn’t there anymore. Dad told me she had to go away for a while and she just... never came back. I can’t really remember her face. Just what her voice sounded like, and her cooking,” he shrugged.

“You could try meditating,” Lance suggested. “You said you had a flashback type thingy when you did the trials for the blade right? Maybe if you just relax you can dredge up a memory?”

“I don’t know about that, but Allura’s magic might actually be able to do something, if not the technology - if king Alfor’s memories could be stored in a computer, maybe we can store Keith’s and find out that way?” Shiro suggested.

“Coran did say there was no problem extracting memories from willing participants,” Hunk suggested. “Think you could do that?” He asked Keith, who was forcing down the last few mouthfuls of food goo.

“It’s worth a try,” Keith shrugged.

What did he have to lose?

Together with the other paladins, they made their way down to the cryopods where Coran had imprisoned Sendak. After collecting some equipment from her workstation, Katie soon had one of the pods set up to extract Keith’s memories into a cybernetic chip.

“You’re really sure about this?” she asked, holding the door open. “If you aren’t comfortable then you don’t have to just because we came up with the idea. These are your memories Keith. If you aren’t ready to find out then you don’t have to.”

“I know, but I’ll find out one way or another whether I want to or not - this at least gives me a bit more change of knowing what’s happening. And if not, at least I get to sleep properly,” he shrugged.

“That’s… a fair point too, but I meant recording this! We’ll see them as they upload onto the main castle computer! These could be really private - you might not want us to know,” Katie said, her voice cautious.

“Pidge has a point - are you sure you’re comfortable with this Keith?” Shiro asked; he too had made his way down with Allura and Coran once word of the idea had reached them.

“You’ll find out anyway, so it doesn’t really matter does it? And like I said, I really, _really_ could do with some sleep,” Keith promised.

Right now, the only decent sleep he could get was in a cryopod, where he was completely knocked out and couldn’t feel a thing. Before Katie or Shiro could say anything more about, he climbed inside the glass machine Hunk was holding open for him.

“Make sure you press the record button,” he joked, before the slight anaesthetic gas took over, and Keith drifted off into well needed, painless sleep.

* * *

 

Bright yellow light filled Keith’s eyes as the pod closed, and when he blinked them open again, he found himself looking up at a familiar face, from a time he no longer remembered.

‘ _Babe! Are you in here?_ ’ the man’s voice called out, and Keith watched as he was carried through the shack to the single side room at the back, where later in life he had kept files and folders of information on what would eventually turn out to be Voltron.

‘ _In the bedroom!_ ’

At the moment, it was a bedroom, almost completely filled by the double bed which had been pulled down from the wall (where it stowed away). Seated cross-legged upon it, tail flicking ominously as they poured over a data pad, was a Galra, wearing what looked suspiciously like _his_ jacket.

Looking up with bright eyes and sleek black fur, grown loose and wavy down their shoulders. Keith’s mother looked at him straight away, and frowned. ‘ _How much this time?_ ’ she said holding her arms out. Even from this distance, Keith could tell she was easily a head taller than the man carrying him.

Keith had the strange sensation of feeling his body being moved, yet completely unaware and lacking control of it, and for the first time in his adult life, he felt the security of his mother’s hold.

Across from the bed was a mirror; in that mirror he could see himself, and the two people in the room. The older male - in his early twenties - had dark hair, a brown close to black, and dark brown eyes that were all too familiar.

 _‘Three inches in four days,_ ’ his father replied. ‘ _Three inches babe! That’s a whole other size of clothes - I’ll have to go buy a couple more things, pull some more shifts,_ ’ he yawned. ‘ _Unless you know how to sew?’_

Keith’s mother stared at his father, blinking uncomprehendingly. ‘ _Humans still sew?_ ’ She asked. ‘ _How pre-interstellar,_ ’ she chuckled. ‘ _Sorry Roger. We haven’t down that for a few thousand years._ ’

‘ _At least its slowing down now,_ ’ his father shrugged sat down on the bed beside her, running his hand over Keith’s head and large ears.

‘ _A half inch of difference isn’t cause for celebration Roger,_ ’ his mother said, Keith felt his baby hand reach up to the tail she was dangling over him, keeping his entertained. ‘ _Last time that happened he had that growth spurt and his teeth started growing in! He’s six months old and he looks more like three years old!_ ’ she added, voice anxious. ‘ _And unfortunately, his brain is keeping up with the development._ ’

‘ _You say that, except he hasn’t learned English yet,_ ’ Roger pointed out to her.

‘ _I told you, the words are difficult for Galra mouths. I struggled at first and I’m an adult,_ ’ the Galra sighed. ‘ _It will take him time, I suspect he will need to stop growing first too. N’tis atth ghrti Keith?_ ’ she asked as the baby laughed - how weird that felt, laughing without any control over his body - and curled his tail.

‘ _Ush’br! U’m! Ush’br!_ ’ Keith proclaimed, and she immediately purred and began to groom his ears, brushing her fingers through his hair and fur, before combing more finely with a rough tongue; the action made Keith’s bones feel like jelly, and he slumped contentedly in her arms.

Keith’s father sat up, pulling them both into his arms, and Keith trilled again - quiznak, that was so weird! - moving his tail from his mother to flick the furry tip at his father’s fingers.

‘ _Were you looking at the data reports from your ship?_ ’ He asked.

‘ _Yes, there’s nothing in the system, and my rescue signal still hasn’t been picked up,_ ’ she smiled. ‘ _My brother will find it eventually. He should be due to check this sector with a blade ship soon._ ’

‘ _Are you sure you want to do this? When he does find the signal?_ ’ Roger asked. ‘ _I can shoot an earth gun babe - space guns can’t be that different, and we’ve got the baby carrier. Hell, your space science can probably figure out more about what’s going on with Keith than anything earth medicine ever could,_ ’ he said.

‘ _I know, but I can feel his quintessence steadying,_ ’ his mother said, and Keith’s ears listened attentively, determined to remember this when he came out of the pod, even as his tiny, purple, pudgy, clawed hands and two toed feet poked and kicked excitedly. ‘ _It’s so much safer here; Zarkon’s empire hasn’t reached earth yet, and I can’t abandon my comrades_ ,’ she said, ears and tail drooping as she pulled Keith close enough for him to catch her fragrance. Otherworldly, but home. ‘ _I don’t want him to see it Roger. Life on a ship is no way for a child to grow up, constantly in danger. The spell will hide him until he’s old, lived a normal life…_ ’

She smiled into Keith coos, brushing noses and smiling at his laughs, golden eyes damp and shiny with tears.

‘ _I know,_ ’ his father smiled, kissing her forehead. ‘ _I just wish you weren’t. I love you, crazy alien lady._ ’

‘ _And I you, semi-evolved terrestrial,_ ’ his mother chuckled. ‘ _But I’m afraid you are second best to my son._ ’ she stuck her tongue out.

‘ _And rightly so, I’ve got to admit, once your emperor's galactical dictatorship is over, you should advocate first contact here. Human and Galran is a pretty good mix. Our boy is the most handsome creature in the universe!_ ’

As Keith felt his baby self shift to let his mother continue her grooming, he faced the mirror and tried to absorb as much as he could of the image; it was hard to see in the toddler shorts and t-shirt, but Keith could see fur on his back fading out to normal human skin just where it reached his elbows.

Well, normal besides being purple. And his hands had those dark claws instead of fingernails, but they didn’t look too sharp - trimmed almost, like someone had cut them to prevent him from scratching himself. His ears almost seemed to blend into his hair, which was still dark. It blurred a little into the fur on the back of his neck.

The toes and tail were strange, but aside from that, and the yellow where should have been whites of his eyes, his face was almost exactly the same. Younger and chubbier as babies tended to be, but Keith could easily recognise himself.

His dad was right; even as a human, he looked a lot like his mother.

As his memory-self around, he looked for something that he could use as a time reference, something to work out when this was. His father had put 23rd of October as his birthday, but if he’d been growing abnormally as child, that potentially meant that the rest of his growth was unusual too.

Eventually his eyes settled on the alarm clock beside the bed. It was an old digital one, didn’t even have radio, an ancient thing from the 90s that his father had collected. All it did was show the date, time in 24 hours, and make horrendous noise until someone punched it.

**_7th April 2030  
13:47pm_ **

Keith just had time to remember the numbers before his younger self shifted, turning back to his mother, and drifting off for a nap to the sound of her pleasant croons.

* * *

The haze of his sleep blurred into the haze of the night time, sometime later, and Keith immediately remembered this for what it was simply by the set of his body as he sat with his mother on the porch, drawing pictures of the stars she pointed out.

‘ _O-Orion,_ ’ he mouthed, before trying to sound the word, looking to her for direction.

‘ _That’s it little cub,_ ’ she smiled, and Keith felt his ears perk top at the praise. ‘ _What about those ones there?_ ’ She asked, wrapping their blanket a little tighter and pointing to a constellation above them.

‘ _Caztor,_ ’ Keith’s replied quickly, pointing to one, then the other. ‘ _And pul-uks._ ’

‘ _Better, are you ready for school tomorrow?_ ’ She asked - this time Keith noticed her words had gone back to Galran. Had she been practicing English with him?

‘ _No,_ ’ Keith felt himself sulk. ‘ _Why can’t I stay here? I like it at home with you and Daddy!_ ’ His tail flicked despondently beneath the blanket.

‘ _You can’t stay in the house forever my little love,_ ’ he mother smiled, kissing his forehead and pressing their noses together. ‘ _You need friends. I wish I could be everything you need, but its better this way._ ’

‘ _But school sounds awful!_ ’ Keith bemoaned, curling up in her arms, looking up at the sky. The map of the universe seemed so much smaller now that he had gone beyond that which lay before his younger eyes, but he remembered feeling absolutely fascinated.

Something caught his eye, and he tensed. ‘ _Mummy! Look! That one’s purple like us, and its moving! It’s a shooting star!_ ’ He cried excitedly, Galra eyes picking out slight colour that Keith wouldn’t have spotted. ‘ _I’ve never seen a shooting star move so fast! Maybe it’s a satellite!_ ’

Over their heads, between Castor and Pollux was a moving entity, a tiny white dot that could have been anything - Keith suspected from his next words that it was something else entirely.

‘ _Or maybe it’s an alien spaceship, coming to take you away!_ ’ His mother grinned, pouncing and tickling his sides mercilessly. Keith howled with laughter, rolling and scrambling to free himself.

Eventually he managed to do so by hiding behind his father as the racket brought him outside. ‘ _Alright, that’s enough for tonight spaceman,_ ’ he grinned, catching Keith by his waist and hefting him under an arm. ‘ _Oof, you might be 18 months but you really don’t feel that small anymore!_ ’ He mumbled. ‘ _Come on, bedtime squirt, you’ve got a big day tomorrow! First day of school, finally!_ ’ He commanded, heading back inside; Keith was squirming and laughing under his arm, looking back for his mother.

‘ _Mummy!_ ’ He called out; she looked through the doorway and smiled; in her hand was a small compact with a screen - a visual communicator, and on it was a face that looked slightly familiar, but the movements made it difficult for Keith to make it out through his younger eyes.

‘ _I’ll be right there to say goodnight sweetheart - do what your father says, there’s a good boy, okay?_ ’

Reluctantly Keith did as told, making sure to climb on the stool to the kitchenette sink and scrub his fangs and molars (with some help from his father on the longer ones).

It was several minutes later, when he was tucked up into the big double bed shared with his parents and one of his favourite stuffed hippos, when she came in, hanging her jacket on the back of the door before settling down beside him.

‘ _Teeth all brushed?_ ’ She checked; Keith pulled his lips back with his fingers and allowed her to check for the smell of toothpaste.

‘ _And did you comb your fur properly?_ ’ She added, and this time Keith nodded, burrowing down under the duvet, position his hippo carefully to make his point.

‘ _That’s my little cub,_ ’ she smiled, leaning over and pressing her lips to his forehead. ‘ _You get some sleep okay? Tomorrow is a big day. I’m so proud of you, I’ll always be proud of you. my little cub,_ ’ she said.

As she spoke, Keith already felt sleepy - the transferred feelings in the memory made it hard to pay attention, but Keith watched as a faint purple glow appeared somewhere, the hand his mother was running through the back of his hair maybe?

‘ _I’m so sorry Keith, I wish I could do something else to keep you safe, but this is all I can think of,_ ’ she said; Keith felt wet drops on his face as his younger body began to lose itself in haze. ‘ _I hope I see you again one day, but if not, your father will tell you everything when your older._ ’

The haze was too much like sleep and once again, Keith found himself falling into a slumber.

‘ _Night Mummy, love you,_ ’ he mumbled.

‘ _I love you too Keith; Goodbye my little star._ ’

* * *

The pod door opened with a pneumatic hiss, and Keith collapsed forward into strong but slender arms he dopily managed to identify as those of Katie and Lance.

“Hey Keith buddy, how you feeling?” Lance asked, helping him to a table where there was some food goo and water packets waiting - casserole by the smell.

It took several moments for Keith to re-orientate himself, but after a moment he felt stable enough to eat a few mouthfuls and dredge down some water.

“Like I’ve been hooked up to morphine for six weeks - how long was I in there for?” He asked, exhausted despite the sleep. He felt better for it - his body didn’t ache - but he needed sleep to recover from the induced sleep.

“Two days,” Katie said. “It took longer than we thought for the technology to connect once you were in the pod; you looked like you needed the time, so we decided to keep going so you could rest for a while.”

Keith nodded along to show he was paying attention, staring down at his food. His mind was a mess as his memories shifted sand tried to make room for his new knowledge chronologically.

“Do you remember much?” She asked gently. “We can tell you what we found in a short version. There about ten different clips, but Coran said you might not remember all of them.”

Keith didn’t remember that many, just the two that were swimming in his head right now, and even those were more ideas than memories. He didn’t want to think about them too much.

Shaking his head, he picked up one of the water packets and slowly got to his feet. “Is it alright if I go back to my room for a bit?” He asked. “I don’t think I can talk about all this yet,” he admitted.

“That’s fine - it’ll give us a chance to go over what we have and see if the blades can help too. Do you mind if we show Kolivan?” Shiro asked, steadying him with a hand on his shoulder. Keith shook his head.

“Alright then, Hunk, Lance, will you help me tidy up?” Corn asked. “Pidge, can you help Keith back to his room?”

“No problem Coran.”

Ambling down the halls felt like a blur, and collapsing into bed even more so; the only thing besides the memory of his mother’s face that Keith remembered before he fell asleep was the smell of the castle.

The rooms were sterile, but he’d grown so used to the scentless air. Katie helped him down the hallway on his wobbly legs, and helped pull a looser shirt over his head for sleeping in.

He knew logically this was only a side effect of the cryopod. Everyone needed a bit of help after one for any long period of rest inside one, but Keith couldn’t help but feel like the child in his memories.

He was comfortable though, and as Katie settled down beside him onto of the covers, he pulled her close and rested his eyes on her shoulder. She said nothing, just stayed there, let him cling on to her and clung back.

For her size, Katie had more reassuring strength than both arms of Voltron could ever have. The kind of strength that only came from familiarity and trust, all the things that made a home.

* * *

Welp. More feels in this than planned, but here you go enjoy.

Keith’s dad looks pretty young still to me, so I head canon that he met his alien wife when he was in his early twenties; he was as bull headed as Keith, but with none of his pragmatism. Their pet names are the first things they called each other between shooting.

~~I need more Katie and Keith bonding~~


	4. Past & Future

The video clips weren’t as long as Keith expected them to be, and they provided a welcome distraction from the new morning rituals the changes in his body had brought; after passing out next to Katie, he had woken up with a stinging headache from the memory extraction, and the newest development of his ears. Yet more cleaning and care over the newly forming stubs, and removal of dead sections from his normal ears.

Katie, upon waking herself, wordlessly volunteered her help for the task, and so they had set up the virtual screens while she slowly worked over the mess of his head. The first job of the day was to relay the other memory clips, get a feel for them, and see if there was anything he could remember.

The first memoir was Keith’s first birthday; it was the only one he remembered, but parts were still blurry, in that way that old memories tended to be in waking moments. He’d never found himself able to recall his mother’s face, for instance, until he watched it on the screen. He looked older, like a normal human five-year-old - Keith assumed that was why he could remember it. It had only been three or four years ago.

“What’s she saying?” Katie asked; they were still curled up on his bed; her company was more appreciated than he let on. There was a towel around his neck and a bottle of warm soapy water beside him. Katie soaked his head and hair as necessary between giving the stubs gentle wipes with some cotton wool, or the Altean equivalent of it.

On the holoscreen she had set up, Keith’s toddler self was laughing excitedly at something his mother was singing, mouth covered in chocolate cake, and doing what could only be the toddlers version of a dance.

“It’s happy birthday,” he said. “Sort of. The sentiment isn’t exactly the same.” The line about vanquishing his enemies was probably some sort of encouragement for the future, but not one Keith understood. “Some things are just a bit harder to translate.”

“Still, it’s cute, baby-you looks like he’s having a great time,” Katie chuckled. “Actually, this is good reference to see what you might look like once all these changes finish. Your ears are going to be bigger I think, they’re catching up in proportion to one’s baby-you has. I don’t know what to do about the human ones though.”

Keith tensed a little then grunted in acknowledgment, hand unconsciously going to one of the dried stubs from where the dead flaps of skin had broken off that morning. It was an uncomfortable reminder that he couldn’t ignore all of this forever, no matter how much he might want to.

“I still can’t believe you were right; the odds couldn’t have been that high,” he said, turning away from the screen and sitting on the edge of the bed to pull his boots on.

“They weren’t; I was pretty surprised myself,” Katie sighed. “I also thought these would be shorter but it’s like a home video feed straight out of your head,” she said, stopping the holoscreen. “It might take weeks to find anything that might relate to... whatever Druid spell your mother used on you,” she waved her hand uncertainly. “I wish I could download into Green somehow, she could do this in an hour, but I’m still not familiar with the cross-system on the pods,” she added, teasing a congealed set of locks with her fingers. “The Ancient Altean on them is more advanced than my toddler Altean.”

“Why don’t you just ask Coran or Allura to teach y- ouch!” He winced head jerking as she scrubbed a bit too hard.

“Sorry! That was the last of the snags I promise!” His companion said quickly, her hands quickly falling away until he calmed. “I have been trying with Coran but the time just isn’t there. I can manage with what I do know, so it can wait for when things are a bit more peaceful for now,” she shrugged. “But forget about my dodgy Altean, you’re supposed to be watching. Have you tried fast forwarding it? You have to do it manually, it doesn’t respond to the vocal prompts.”

“Wait, you mean like a _dvd?_ ” Keith blinked. “I thought the videos reacted to verbal commands on these screens? Like back home?”

“Don’t blame me, blame your head - Coran couldn’t get your memories to configure right, so you’ll just have to use the touchpad,” Katie shrugged, hands going back to his damp hair.

Keith ignored the comment but did as instructed, by unhip the virtual touchpad and manually swiping ahead from the excitable toddler currently blowing and laughing excitedly at a birthday cake and a ‘ _one-shaped_ ’ candle.

“How far ahead should I go?” He asked uncertainly. “I can’t even figure out my own age line anymore.”

“Well I can’t blame you, numbers are hard for a seven-year-old,” the girl laughed, pouring a little more water over the second ‘ear’. It looked like a small fold of skin trapped beneath a clearer epidermis, and was much bigger. His hair had started changing around it more than the other side, which was still more prone to profuse bleeding and general soreness than anything else.

“I’m still older than Shiro,” Keith grunted. “Oh, what the hell, let’s try from here,” he shrugged, pausing and starting the video clip again.

This time he was older, not much older, but older than he had been in the memory of his mother leaving. He was slumped on the same double bed as was still back on earth, and this time he looked unpleasantly ill.

“What’s wrong with you?” Katie asked, pausing in the ear-care to stare. “You look like you’re dying!”

“I kinda was, I remember this - my dad made baked sweet potatoes and it was the first time I’d tried them. He ended up calling a doctor from the Garrison I think,” Keith said, sitting a little straighter to o for the key at as the Keith on the screen began to retch into a bucket beside the bed. “Either way it’s too far forward. This was before he died,” he frowned watching the screen as two blurry figures came into the room.

“Is that Shiro’s mother?” Pidge asked as the figures became a bit clearer, completely paused now. “Wait, turn it up they’re saying something.”

Adjusting one of the sliders with a finger, Keith did as asked, listening to the familiar English words as he stared at his hand. His fingers had started changing overnight; they starting to look bruised on the nail, as if they had trapped in a door. The colour was bleeding through the transparent layers of keratin, and it was coming lose from its matrix. He was probably going to lose his nails for the claws he had seen Kolivan and the other blades retracting whilst aboard the ship.

‘ _There are a couple of rare intolerances but... Roger, I honestly don’t know what to give him! If I believe you about Senra, and Keith, then I’m not sure I want to try anything! Human medicine might just make him worse!_ ’

‘ _Kaori, I’ve tried every medicine she left behind and nothing is working! I don’t know what’s happening to him, please!’ His father begged. ‘You’re my only option besides the Commander, and if I tell him he’d have to report this! He already knows Keith’s records for the garrison nursery are fake, but he hasn’t asked questions! Please! There has to be something!_ ’

“This is going to take forever,” Katie groaned.

“Well, I obviously lived so this particular event isn’t an issue. We don’t need to watch the rest right now,” Keith said, hoping to distract her.

Katie shot him a quick smile of thanks. “Alright, let me try something else to organise the files this time,” she said, reaching out and bringing up some screen controls of her own.

* * *

As Keith and Katie trawled through the home videos, the rest of the team used his distraction to try and plan. Keith wasn’t so sure why they were trying to keep it a secret - he already knew they were planning the belated celebration - but seeing them try was at the very least amusing.

Hunk, for one, nearly had a heart attack when Keith walked into the kitchen after the video marathon, looking for something to snack on for them both.

“Don’t look at it!” He cried in horror upon sight of Keith standing in the kitchen doorway. “I haven’t figured out how to make a mirror glaze with Altean baking ingredients yet!”

He all but hustled Keith back out of the room into the hall, only handing him a bowl of food goo once the door had been firmly closed behind him.

After that Keith found himself being thrown out of various corners of the ship, much to Katie’s amusement when he returned to his room later in the day, where she was still going through videos.

When he went to the bridge, Lance and the Princess both nearly manhandled him out of the room, but not before he caught a glimpse of streamer chains hanging from the ceiling, and the remains of what looked like popped balloons all over the floor.

Then he found himself barred even from the lion hangars by Shiro. Upon venturing down, his oldest friend also spent an awkward few moments trying to pretend that he was not blocking the door.

“Sorry Keith! Kolivan’s cruiser picked up some kind of, I dunno, dust covering? Something that’s bad for Galra,” he said, twitchy and hopeful at the same time.

Keith let out a silent sigh. Shiro was Too earnest and an absolutely terrible liar all at the same time. He looked like he’d been around the training room too many times though, so whatever he was doing, it was taking effort. For his stupid birthday.

“Dust covering,” Keith said slowly, getting an encouraging nod from his pseudo-brother. “Right, so why are they still in there?” He asked, jutting his chin towards the flicks of purple fur he could see through some glass in the door.

Shiro twitched; Keith smirked. Just because he was playing along didn’t mean he could torment his friend at the same time.

“Well, they know how to deal with it,” Shiro offered, quickly blocking the glass. But given all your changes right now, its... uh... probably safer for you out here! I let you know when its sa- oh no! Antok got caught in it! I need to go help! Bye!”

And with that, Shiro slammed the doors to the lion hangar closed with the flick of a button (and abuse of black paladin power).

* * *

With little choice left, Keith returned to his room, only stopping back at the kitchen to ask Hunk for more snacks. Katie raised an eyebrow as he came back inside, flopping down on his bed face first.

“Why are they even bothering to try and keep it a surprise?” He frowned in confusion to his pillow. “You were all making plans with Kolivan the other day. I was there, in the kitchen.”

“I guess, but this is the first real chance we’ve had to celebrate anything, and it probably makes Lance and Hunk a bit less homesick,” Katie said, leaning her head back on the edge of the duvet, ponytail splashing out across the fabric as she tilted her head back. “Just humour us?”

“You too?” Keith blinked looking up.

“Hunk promised me space-peanut-butter cupcakes if I kept you distracted,” she admitted without a trace of regret. “This kills two birds with one stone.”

“Ah,” Keith grunted flopping back down onto his pillow, but turning his face to see the holoscreen again. “Don’t let me get between you and your space-peanut-butter then. What’s next?

“I think we need to go further back - whatever your mother did, she had to plan it at some point, so next up is what I guess is your equivalent of the toddler phase.”

“Wonderful,” Keith sighed. “Did you make some kind of search algorithm? It’ll take years to get through all this otherwise,” he asked, watching as Katie brought up a search box and began typing Altean code into it.

“I set the search filters to any words she might have used, but I was hoping to ask if you could translate the Galran for me, that way if she and your dad are talking bilingually we won’t miss it,” she nodded, giving him an expectant look.

“What’s the first word?”

“Druid.”

“Lud’rd,” Keith said. Katie immediately changed the type settings to Galran and began to input the words into her custom audio search engine.

“Spell”

“Xek.”

They went on like that, translating keywords into Galran, English, and Altean so that they had a brad does trump of checkpoints on the video timeline of Keith’s life. The blips That appeared on the video progress bar were many, but the system made it infinitely easier to narrow down possible information points.

Eventually, they homed in on a blip that occurred roughly around the same time of the second dream/memory Keith had whilst he was in the pod. With the images on the screen and the dim words, Keith watched as his younger self, woken by raised voices, jumped down from the bed and peeked around the door.

He and pidge caught a glimpse of him in the mirror again, and his purple skin and ears were obvious still even beneath his spaceship pyjamas and the seemingly large cuddly hippo he dragged with him.

“You have a stuffed hippo? That’s adorable,” Katie giggled beside him; Keith ignored her, his thoughts only mildly recognising the toy still stuffed into the backpack he’d been carrying when they left earth, in the wardrobe beneath the few spare clothes he’d amassed the past few years. He was focused on the video.

The sounds were coming from just beyond the tiny bedroom the three of them shared, but the one that drew Keith from his slumber was his mother’s obvious distress.

‘ _…Still think it’s better for you to take him with you Senra! If your race really is led by a universe-conquering dictator, it isn’t going to be long before he reaches Earth, is it?_ ’ His father was saying, head held in his hands as he sat slumped on the sofa. ‘ _It’s like you keep saying, Earth is pre-interstellar! If a hostile alien army shows up we don’t have a chance, and If I was an evil asshole like that, and there was a resource rich, defenceless planet full of a prime workforce, I’d take advantage of it!_ ’

‘ _I wish I could but even if that’s the case I want him to have a childhood Roger, and not one like mine,_ ’ Keith’s mother said back, watching out of the window with her arms crossed, tail flicking and ears flattened pensively. ‘ _The Blade of Marmora could train you both, yes, they provide refuge for members families in extreme cases, but they still what you would know as a terrorist group to the loyal empire,_ ’ she stressed. ‘ _There is a large price on my head, and if you recall correctly, I was hiding out in the desert avoiding the third bounty hunter to try and claim it that week. You accidentally shot him in the vlanskoko’l._ ’

‘ _I remember, you kept shouting it at me and I had no idea what you were talking about,_ ’ his father smiled fondly. then he dragged his hand through his hair. ‘ _You don’t think it would be worth it just so we could get him to a doctor who actually understands his biology? What if something happens to him Sen? What if he gets sick? I can’t take him to a human doctor, even if this spell or magic of your works_ ’ he asked.

‘ _Galra immune strength is yet another part of what has allowed our emperor to take his campaign so far - our race is extremely hardy and generally able to stand most infections and contagious illnesses. His Galra genes are dominant and aside from a fast-paced growth which had already begun to slow, I’d rather take the chance,_ ’ Senra sighed, moving from the window to sit down beside his dad. ‘ _Roger, please, I know you think it’s safer, and maybe you’re right; I wish I knew for certain that you were, that we could stay together, all three of us, but it isn’t. At least here you know your own kind, and he’ll at least look like a human._ ’

Keith watched the screen, almost recalling the confusion and bubble of worry that might have exploded in ‘ _18-month-old’_ Keith as he watched from the crack in the door. As if he knew they were talking about him, that something was going to change. Maybe it was just because he was watching the video, but this felt familiar.

‘ _…think it’s for the best, then I’ll respect your choice,_ ’ his father said, drawing Keith’s attention back to the video. ‘ _But I do have some questions. This spell, you called it? How will it work?_ ’ He asked.

His mother took a breath, leaning into his father’s chest as they slumped together on the sofa. ‘ _It will wire into his quintessence, so to speak, force his latent human genetics to the surface, like a genetic disguise. It will last forever,_ ’ she frowned. ‘ _Unless he runs in to some form of quintessence, but on this planet, I doubt that._ ’

‘ _You’d better tell me what will happen on the off chance it does, just to be on the safe side,_ ’ Roger said calmly.

Keith watched as his mother frowned. ‘ _As the spell fades, he would have a rapid growth as his body caught up with itself. His ears, height, body structure, everything would revert to as it is now. It would be extremely uncomfortable, but… the amount of quintessence he would need to be exposed to simply doesn’t exist on this planet. There are traces, but nothing in the atmosphere that I can detect that would be enough to dislodge my spell_.’

‘ _You’re sure?_ ’ His father asked. ‘ _If you aren’t certain, then-_ ’

‘ _If I were not certain this was the safer option then I would not have suggested it Roger,_ ’ his mother said, calm, her voice soothing and reassuring. ‘ _The only things with enough quintessence to destabilise this spell are Zarkon’s Witch, or something like Voltron. Voltron doesn’t exist, and the Witch is far from here, so it’s completely safe._ ’

‘ _Alright, if-_ ’ Keith watched as his father broke off again, eyes landing on the door. then he rose onto his feet, arms beginning to outstretch, face composed and happy as if nothing were wrong. ‘ _Keith! What are you doing up little buddy? Its way past your bedtime!_ ’

Keith jerked his head out of the bubble it had been in, lost ink his own memories and the screen. Beside him, Katie was biting her lip.

“So, I guess now we know why the spell is breaking down,” she guessed. “I mean, it’s not like your mum could have predicted that you’d become a paladin if she didn’t even believe it existed,” she reasoned.

“True, Keith groaned, flopping back on his bed again. “She also said its going to get worse before it settles, more or less.” Body structure, she’d mentioned. Did that mean he was going to get taller, like the rest of the Blades? That might not be so bad, but he’d have to relearn his entire fighting style to account for the change in balance, never mind adjust to his entirely new biology.

“She also loved you a lot and wanted to keep you safe. I mean, considering this is you were talking about she was already fighting an uphill battle, so honestly, the fact that you got seven years as a human is pretty good,” Katie reasoned, turning around and crossing her arms across the duvet.

She had. The video evidence was literally right in front of him. Keith couldn’t help but smile a little at that.

* * *

This was much later than I planned but I finally kicked my brain into gear. Partly because work has been sucking my creative mojo into the deathless void of no return lately.  I had an idea for a Christmas fic that follows on slightly from this, so I've got to finish this first, which also helped get past my block with this particular prompt. 

I apologise for any errors. ~~It is once again ass-o-clock in the morning here.~~ Please enjoy all the same, hopefully the next chapters wont be too much longer.


	5. Just Keith Things

“What about this?”

Allura held up a box which appeared to have several limb-like sproutings on every side. Lance assumed it had a use, but he honestly had no idea what it was.

They were back in the Space Mall, browsing the shelves of what he assumed was an alien gift shop. Or the closest equivalent. If Lance had learned anything from this latest development, it was that aliens didn’t really do birthdays. Or their celebrations were so far out of the human lifespan that he would probably never see one to see how they celebrated anything.

“Err… I don’t know,” Lance admitted, before strangling his hair with his hands. “This is impossible! I wouldn’t even know what to buy Keith as a present back on earth, let alone in space!” He groaned.

“I believe it may due to Keith’s lack of material goods - he doesn’t seem to have the same need to retain his belongings like you or Hunk,” Allura agreed. “Can you think of anything you would obtain for him on earth?” She asked. “We can always go back to Terra and look at the - what were they called?”

“LPs, and I don’t know, right now it’s looking like the best option. I just don’t know if Keith just has bad fashion sense or genuinely likes that 60-year-old junk as an aesthetic,” Lance admitted. “Plus, I don’t think we have enough GAC for the player.”

As they left the shop and wandered through the space mall Lance tried to think; if he were back on earth, Keith was the sort of person he would buy a gift voucher. Not because he was lazy or didn’t like him, but Keith was an extremely private person, except maybe to Shiro (and most recently Pidge).

He was that one person you spent _hours_ wanderings around the shops trying to find something they might like, but you weren’t certain, because no matter how long or how well you knew them, you _still_ didn’t know. Depending on the person, you could also doubt you intimate of a present to get.

Like when Lance spent hours wandering around the town trying to find a present for that guy he’d been pining over in his advanced defensive technology class at the garrison one Christmas. He’d ended up chickening out and just giving him a card instead, but it was that kind of feeling.

Or, to put it in short, Keith was just an awkward asshole to buy a present for, and lance had no idea what to get him. Allura was right, Keith had virtually no materialistic needs. Whilst he, Hunk, Pidge, and even Shiro had collected various trinkets to make their rooms on the castle ship feel more like home, Keith’s was as bare as bones.

“Do aliens have gift cards?” He asked.

“What are gift cards?” Allura blinked. “Are those the same as the ‘ _birthday cards_ ’ you mentioned earlier?”

Lance gave a brief explanation of gift cards, stressing the differences when needed. Finally, a form of recollection and understanding crossed her face, marking flashing cheerily.

“Oh! You mean like a universal credit token! Yes, that is a good idea!” She beamed. “But I think if I want to take part in this human celebration properly, we really should think of something else to go with it,” she added, biting her lip in thought.

lance nodded. He hated giving people nothing but a gift card. It seemed too impersonal.

“Maybe we should think of something practical - Keith likes practical stuff, I guess,” he suggested.

“But you said birthday gifts should be considerate of the person’s wants and likes, as well as your relationship with them - if Pidge, Shiro, and Hunk can come up with something to get Keith, then we won’t have any problems.”

True. Pidge had found some Galran children language books - as Keith had confessed he didn’t know how to read Galran during a trip to the space mall, and had tinkered with the Altean language learning programme to make one on the ship’s computer.

Hunk had - with help from Kolivan and Regris - developed a range of Galra-friendly instant soup and bought an alien version of a thermos flask for Keith to take with him on his blade missions when they popped up.

Even Shiro had managed to swap some of the things he’d been given by grateful planets for some GAC and bought something (though what it was remained an absolute mystery).

Even Coran and some of the Blades had found something from what had been discussed in the planning so far, so if they could find something, then surely they could too.

“You’re right!” Lance proclaimed, fist-pumping the air and looking for a new shop to search. “We’re going to find Keith the best birthday present ever even if we have to tear this space mall apart!”

“Yes! Well, no, wait! Lance! That’s a pet shop!”

“Perfect, we can get Keith a space kitten!”

* * *

“No! No! No! No! No!”

“Yellow Paladin, is everything alright?” Antok asked poking his head around the kitchen door at the sound of the human’s lamenting.

The tall male held a tray of goodies in his gloved hands, and looked fit to either throw the tray across the table, or cry. From anger or sadness, Antok was unsure, but he suspected crying more than a tantrum from Yellow’s pilot.

“I can’t get the dough to rise on my doughnuts! Whatever was in that alien flour it wasn’t the right stuff! They look like shrivelled onion rings! I’ve still got to find out how to make the mirror glaze for the cake! The only thing I’ve managed to make is the party rings!” Hunk blurted, eyes glassy and panic clear on his face.

Antok starred at the increasing anxious paladin; on the one hand he wished to help, but on the other hands, he also had absolutely no idea how to cook, let alone make this thing the yellow paladin called ‘ _cake_ ’ or ‘ _doughnuts_ ’.

“You said this several days ago regarding the ‘ _gelly_ ’ that did not solidify as you wanted, correct?”

“The jelly, yeah but I fixed that - I hadn’t heated it to the right temperature to activate the little freeze bubbles.”

“Then you will find a way to fix this cake - I cannot offer much assistance, but I am free for several hours until I am to go to the next base with Kolivan. Can I help you in some way?” Antok offered. “I can wash utensils and any tools you will be using.”

Hunk blinked, and Antok was relieved to see that the glassy, teary look was fading. “That, would actually really help,” the human mumbled. “It would give me more time to try a few different mix combinations. Right now, I’m wasting half of it just cleaning up after myself! Thank you so much Antok.”

Antok offered a nod. “It is no problem. Direct me as necessary.”

He regretted those words when the human did so with more sharpness and attention to detail than Kolivan criticising uniform care during morning roll call.

* * *

“Kolivan!” A familiar voice called out. Looking from the gangway of his ship with impassive eyes and perpetual patience, he waited for the green paladin to approach. ‘ _Pidge,_ ’ he reminded himself. ‘ _She said to call her Pidge._ ’

“Yes Gree-, Pidge?” He asked, waiting as she caught her breath; he and one of the other members were leaving to check in with a local base post, and she had obviously been running to catch up by the heavy breaths she took.

“You said you wanted to know if we found anything about Keith’s mother, right? We found out her name, looking through his memories. She’s the one who cast the druid spell on him.”

“That will narrow things down considerably, the number of quintessence users within the blade is not high,” he commented. Her name would be even better, even just a primary or clan name. Names were unique, either to individuals out families - no two Galra clans held the same name, so either would be incredibly useful in identifying a past or present blade member. “What of the Druid spell?”

“Well, her first name is Senra,” Pidge said.

It was only decades upon decades of practice that that kept Kolivan from starting at the sound of the name.

“We haven’t overheard a second name, but she used druid spells around Keith when he was younger, mostly on the hoover for being too loud,” Pidge commented - Kolivan assumed this ‘ _hoover_ ’ was a human creature of some sort. “We did identify the spell that was used though, and Coran is messaging Lotor for more information on it while Keith gets his scan - we woke up this morning and his tail was sprouting. And his ears. It was kind of messy.

Kolivan nodded - he remembered Regris’s own changes and honestly, was not surprised by Keith’s. He watched patiently as she tapped a few buttons on her data pad, and a ping arrived on his own. “I’ve sent you all the video clips we’ve found so far, along with some clips that we weren’t able to translate - Keith said the words sound familiar, but he didn’t understand them, so it might be an older form of the language or something.” She explained.

“This will be most useful,” Kolivan said, flicking through the files that he’d just received in curiosity.

Really, he had to admit, these humans were incredibly quick to get results when they wished to. It was astounding how quickly they adapted, not unlike the Galra. No wonder they had managed to achieve galaxial (if not interstellar) space travel before quelling inter-species discord and becoming cohesive planetary race.

“Thank you for this, Green Paladin Pidge,” he nodded to the young female sincerely. “I have been unable to check in on Keith, but please pass along my well wishes. I will do my best to include this in my investigations,” he promised.

“No problem, see you tomorrow Kolivan,” Pidge grinned, an odd jaunty wave at her head, before gracefully turning on the toes of one foot and dashing off in the opposite direction to the bowels of the ship.

Once the Green Paladin had left and Kolivan had made it to his cruiser, he let out the breath he had been holding ever since she spoke the name of Keith’s mother.

 _Senra_. How long had it been since he heard that name spoken so freely? Needs of the mission he had chosen had all but pushed the face and name from his memories for at least a few decades. Almost, but not entirely. “A blade legacy indeed,” he sighed to himself, staring at the picture on one of the video screens, a face he had not seen for a long, long time.

Running a hand over his face, he kick-started the engines and after Antok and Regris had joined him, they left the castle ship hangar, seamlessly blending with the gravity and pitch of space itself thanks to the Green paladins cloaking device (that particular human really was most useful - she made some of his own technology chiefs look like children). It didn’t take long to reach the base, but rather than join Antok and Regris, Kolivan remained on the ship.

“I need to visit the Savorix system,” he said to Antok, holding up a hand when his bodyguard moved to follow. “Until I return, it must remain classified.”

Antok had not be pleased but had held back. Without explanation, Kolivan had flown. The sector was sealed off from even the empire blades due to the resulting quintessence poisoning in the atmosphere after the destruction of Daibazaal. The planets and inhabitants had not been harmed, at least not that it appeared. The alteration in the atmosphere had made it intolerable to many other planetary species, including the Galra. Not even Zarkon’s Witch would have been able to enter without protection.

It was a gas giant surrounding a web like planet that was formed from a lightweight rock in tunnels and connecting circular shaped structures, hollow within. That was headed directly into the middle of the planet, to the central dome. Around him, he knew there were eyes watching, ever vigilant.

After landing, it took several moments to apply the appropriate protective outer gear - not to mention connect the breathing apparatus - but he eventually left his ship, and found the genetic access point. A hand, eye, and facial scan allowed him access, and a panel in the rock rose away, revealing the purple glow of luminescence ore lighting within. Once the door closed behind him, he did not remove the helmet - even being within the structure was dangerous outside of certain bathing, meeting, dining, and barracks rooms.

It didn’t take long to find the room he was looking for, or the Galra that owned it. The room was a single, indicating a medial rank, though still rather bare of mementos, bare a single star map and diagram of planetary placement within a foreign galaxy.

“Kolivan?” A familiar face blinked, arriving at the doorway just behind him, quickly stepping inside and sealing the airlock.

Her hair was long as his own, but much thicker and dark black rather than white, with white highlights striping across her face amongst the purple fur. Her tail was longer than it had been during his last official visit to this base, and decorated with several ornaments, one looking suspiciously like an official tail ring - she had also let the tuft grow out. “What is it?” Senra asked.

“I must ask you a question, and you must answer me honestly,” Kolivan said sharply, his eyes flickering to the diagram of the galaxy. It was a recent addition to the room, in the past twenty decaphoeb. “Well two questions really, I do not have the time to stay, this not an official visit and I don’t want to get bogged down with questions when my presence is noted.”

“Understood, I will answer your questions,” she replied. “What is it you wish to know?”

Kolivan took a breath, before turning to face her. “Have you, during any of your missions remained on a planet by the name of Earth, or Terra? You may also know it as System X9Y.”

She stiffened, but nodded. “I was sent to appraise the planet during the last border advancement, as a possible target. The atmosphere was unexpectedly difficult for my shields to tolerate when coming out of orbit, and I was stranded temporarily until Ulaz was able to reclaim me. It remained classified.”

Kolivan nodded. “I would like to see the mission report after I leave; my next question is this - did you bond, mate, and produce offspring with an alien on Terra?”

There was a silence. Then Senra turned to her single cupboard, reaching to one of the personal storage lockers in the back. Reaching inside, she pulled out a photograph and a stuffed creature of some kind, clearly a child’s toy.

“Keith,” she said simply, holding the photo out for him. “My son. His litter mates did not survive for long after leaving the gestation sac.”

He took it and looked at the picture; indeed, it looked exactly like the young child he’d seen in Keith’s videos. Running a hand over his face again, he sat down on the bed. “Senra?”

“Yes father?”

“I have more questions.”

* * *

“Well, there’s good news and bad news,” Coran said after Keith had finished his latest pod scan. “The good news is everything is in working order and your new ears should develop their fill hearing potential over the next few days.”

Keith’s face remained impassive. “And the bad news?” He asked.

“The bad news is this particular spell, from Lotor’s research, will probably pick up speed as it disintegrates and returns your body to its natural state. Judging by the sudden spurt of growth, I’d say the rest of your body is going to catch up in the next few days.” Coran explained gently.

Aside from the short tail and large ears that had grown in almost entirely overnight, Keith had gained some height, and the purple on his skin had also spread to all but some few patches that remained pale. The oldest areas of purple had also started developing light, soft, fine fur, much like Kolivan’s or Thace’s.

“You can’t stop it at all then?” Keith asked; Coran shook his head.

“I’m afraid not. besides, this is your natural body Keith - if we tried to stop this now it would quite probably do you more harm than good.”

Coran hated seeing the disappointment on Keith’s face, but he couldn’t in good conscience try and stop something he knew was the opposite of harmful.

“I figured. I just...” Keith broke off and Coran put a hand on his shoulder.

“Your struggling with this Keith, and that is perfectly understandable, but you aren’t made by the shape of your skin. That doesn’t mean you have to be uncomfortable though,” he said. “We can’t do much pain wise, unless the Blades have something, so my recommendation would be to go back into the pods to ride it out.”

It would take a while but it was the best option Coran could think of. He knew that Altean medicines wouldn’t work on his human genes from experience, and was equally uncertain of the effects the added Galra ancestry would have. Keith’s genetic heritage was too risky to test it.

Coran had basic knowledge of xenobiology thanks to his training days, but like the paladins, even if he could figure out some of the equipment, he was no expert even in the biology of his own species.

The pods would be the safest, pain free option.

“Now?” Keith blinked, his voice a little fain.

“Not unless you want to - if you want to try and get through this naturally, that’s fine. I just felt you might like to know the option is there for you if you need it,” Coran assured him. “This is your body Keith, and the decision you can control are all yours to make. Whatever you’re most comfortable with, that’s what we’ll do.”

Keith let out a breath. “Thank you Coran.” He said. “I don’t know that I need it right now but, if I change my mind maybe…?”

“Just say the word number four and we’ll have you all set up quicker than faster than an angry klanmüirl blown straight to Wozblay!”  

* * *

Shiro eyed the decorations on the bridge approvingly. Allura and Lance had outdone themselves on the banner and party streamers and paper chains. They’d even managed to find party poppers, or something much like it.

He and lance had worked with the blades on a space version of a piñata, filled with what the blades assure him ewer Galra and human friendly treats, including the ‘dust’ that had been smuggled in, and almost been seen by Keith.

It was nothing but a glowing light effect, but the Blades insisted it was essential to all Galra celebrations, and for Shiro, this wasn’t just an excuse to have a party.

This was a way to help Keith accept himself, and that meant including as much of his Galra heritage as they could too. So, when Ulaz and Thace had asked if it would be out of place to perform Keith’s Întări Ceremony, he had been very enthusiastic to try and include it.

He’d seen Keith struggle with who he was and where he placed in the world ever since they met at the Garrison; before finding out about his Galra heritage, Keith had found it in Voltron. He’d opened up, and for the first time looked as though he’d found a home.

Now he was in doubt again, and Shiro wanted this party to rectify that. This was a chance to help him feel more comfortable in his new skin, to show that he had a place, on both sides of the universe.

“So, are there any specific rituals that go along with this ceremony?” He asked Ulaz, who had taken over the prep with Shiro in Kolivan’s absence.

“Well, usually there's a test of character that allows any Galra to awaken a luxite blade - it’s one of the few rites of passage that remains from the Daibazaal era, and our culture.”

Shiro blinked. “You mean like the Trials?”

“Precisely,” Ulaz nodded. “This will just be the after-ceremony. In normal circumstances, it would have been held after the trial, but as they have not been normal, combining it with your human celebration is fitting.”

Shiro nodded. “What do you need me to do?” He asked.

“First off, a table,” Ulaz said, or something of the like. “To put the saignée blade on, it needs to be a crystal one. I doubt the princess will appreciate any mess so perhaps something for the floor.”

Shiro felt his face pale. “Wait, what do you mean by stains? Are you talking about blood-letting?!”

“So much that we need to put something on the floor?!” Shiro asked, feeling much less sure about this ceremony the Blade wanted to give their newest recruit. “Who’s going to be doing this exactly?! I’m not stabbing Keith! That’s going to send entirely the wrong message!”

“Calm yourself Shiro,” Ulaz urged, recognising the panic. “It is a simple scratch, not unlike this,” he said, lifting up his chin to reveal a thin tattoo-like line traced down his throat. “The mark is made by a saignéur, a relative or close friend, and is mostly superficial. A powder is optionally rubbed in to form a tattoo.”

“Then why do we need to protect the floor from bloodstains?” Shiro asked, still not at all convinced the ceremony was safe.

“It is simply a precaution, in the past saignéurs have used the ceremony to ‘accidentally’ remove possible competition within Galra clans, but nowadays there are no such problems,” Ulaz said quickly. “There’s an occasional accident, but there haven’t been any fatalities with the order for decaphoebs.”

The assurance did nothing to assuage Shiro’s concerns.

* * *

“Has anyone seen Pidge?” Lance asked. “I wanted to ask for her help with one of the presents,” he added, looking into the kitchen where Hunk had amassed several of the blades into what looked like doughnut making.

There was one of them for each step, including Regris. Like an alien desert ford assembly line. Incredibly strange for the eye to behold, but Lance had grown used to strange sights - they were after all in space.

Plus, Keith was growing a tail. He didn’t really expect much to surprise him after he’d found out about that.

“She went up to the med bay about when his scan with Coran was done - I think they were on the sofas watching some more videos,” Hunk said, not even looking up from his icing.

“Do you know if Coran found anything?” He asked.

Hunk looked up at lance, then went back to his icing. “No but… I think we should just keep our focus on the party,” he said, tone unusually quiet. “I think I heard the door slam before Pidge went after him.”

Yikes, that wasn’t good. Lance sounded his thanks before leaving him to it and heading through the halls. When he reached the living space, he stopped at the door, quickly ducking back behind it.

“…won’t make you any less Keith. I know you don’t believe that, but it won’t. No-one gives a damn. It’s been years since we all found out, you included. It doesn’t matter.”

“This isn’t just knowing I’m half space terrorist Katie,” Keith all but growled. “I’m turning into one! It’s happening already! I’m not-”

Wow, Pidge let Keith use her birth name? Lance got food-goo mushed into his hair the last time he tried using it. there was a moment of silence, and Lance dared to peek around the door.

“No, you’re turning into Keith, senior soldier in the blade of Marmora, the red paladin, and pilot of not just one but two lions of Voltron! Half Human, and Half Galra, just like before.”

“This is nothing like before!” Keith hissed, insisting to himself by the sounds of it.

“Yes it is! You’re the same person as before, that you always _have_ been,” Pidge countered instantly. “You’re _Keith_ , and that’s good enough for us.”

They both had their backs to him, and Lance was glad - he didn’t want to intrude.

Keith had just gone into his shell again since all this started. They were lucky he was willing to open up to Pidge about all this really. In any case, Lance knew he was snooping, but worry (and curiosity) held his gaze.

“The only person who’s holding you to that standard is you Keith,” Pidge said, a little more gently from the steps between the two semi-circle sofas lower down in the room. They weren’t joined at the hip, but it was close, and she had a hand on…

...on Keith’s purple, furry shoulder. The shirt on his back had ripped with the sudden changes, and his jacket was on the floor behind them. Lance hadn’t seen the full extent of the changes, and he had to admit he was a little taken aback.

Not in disgust, just surprise. Keith was like Shiro - he didn’t really react to his own discomfort, and the sense of intruding was starting to come back.

Pidge was shuffling closer, murmuring something, her fingers rubbing smooth, calming circles and light scratches into the purple fur; it looked like a practiced motion.

She wrapped an arm around Keith’s shoulders, letting him lean against her own when Keith made some kind of choked noise, and lance quickly pulled his head back.

The team relied on Keith a lot, either as a blade or as a paladin of two completely different lions, but right now, he needed to rely on someone else.

Lance was certain that the green arm of Voltron had it all in hand.

* * *

 

this chapter was also called everybody loves Keith and he finally gets a hug.


End file.
